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// STA NDA R DS //

1 March/ April 2020

My Pop Life Tips, gear picks, and confessions from our staff.

From the Editor The stealth cooling operation that powers the Mac Pro.

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Science Researchers examine the bizarrities of quantum superposition.

Games & Toys Lessons from an unbeatable chess AI.

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3 Deep Math A guess-free shortcut for solving quadratic equations.

Drinks The secret to freezing crystalclear ice for your cocktails.

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Machines A weapon so dangerous the U.S. military wouldn’t test it.

Food The efficient electricity for making glutenfree bread.

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9 Sci-Fi Your guide to 2020’s sciencefiction cinema.

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Hoax Is your phone really using apps to spy on you?

Home Cast-iron skillets that will only improve with time.

Tools The best mowers to shear the shag from your lawn.

Pro Notes Intel from our Pop Mech Pro members.

How to Be Good at What You Do This builder designs to serve.

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F R O M L E F T: J O S É M A N D O J A N A ; A N D R E W S P E A R ; CO L E W I L S O N ; T R E VO R R A A B

// FE ATURES //

Why I’m Building My Own Plane

5 Ways to Craft a Legacy

The rewards of building every pilot’s dream: a personal aircraft. p.32

A toolbox, knife, shed, garden, and home-brewing creed that will last for generations. p.36

// ON THE COVER //

The LEGO Revolution’s 44-Pound Star Destroyer Inside the burgeoning world of custom LEGO projects. p.48

2020 Tools of the Year 48 exceptional tools that will unleash your capability and help you take any project to the next level. p.55

P HOTOGR A P H BY JOSÉ M A N DOJA N A

March/April 2020

My Pop Life

Alexander George EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

// EXPERT H ACKS, GE A R RECS & LIFE-TESTED W ISDOM FROM OUR STAFF //

@jlorileman

Baking Hack To keep baked treats like cookies, brownies, or cake from going stale, I pop a piece of bread in the container. It works every time.

JENNIFER LEMAN News Editor Never met a volcano I didn’t like.

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Favorite App I just downloaded the Flyover Country app. You set your route and then download a geologic guide that explores the features you’ll see 35,000 feet below.

CURRENT PASSION PROJECT This summer, I worked part-time as a fry cook at Fancy Nancy restaurant in Brooklyn. I absolutely loved it, and aim to bring that energy into my own kitchen. Lately, I’ve been toying with Ramen recipes.

The Best Money I Ever Spent I attended a volcanology field camp in Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in 2017. Standing on the precipice of an active volcano—and learning about the processes that make it churn—was worth every penny. 4

March/April 2020

Matt Allyn Features Director; Brian Dalek Director of Content Operations; Leah Flickinger Director of Content Creation; Lou Mazzante Test Director; Suzanne Perreault Editorial Operations Director; Jesse Southerland Creative Director DESIGN + PHOTO Amy Wolff Photo Director; Colin McSherry Senior Art Director; Alyse Markel Art Director; Eleni Dimou Senior Designer; Kory Kennedy Digital Designer; Kristen Parker Photo Editor; John Hamilton Associate Photo Editor EDITORIAL Molly Ritterbeck Health & Fitness Director; Tracy Middleton Senior Features Editor; Darren Orf Deputy Editor; Tyler Daswick, Taylor Rojek Associate Features Editors; Andrew Daniels How-To Editor; Courtney Linder Senior News Editor; Hailey Middlebrook, Jordan Smith Editors; Danielle Zickl Associate Health & Fitness Editor; Jennifer Leman News Editor; Daisy Hernandez, Paige Szmodis Associate News Editors; Ezra Dyer Automotive Editor; Katie Fogel Social Media Editor; Drew Dawson Gear & News Editor; Jessica Coulon Assistant Editor; Leah Campano Editorial Planning Associate; Amber Joglar Administrative Assistant Kit Fox Special Projects Editor; Caroline Dorey-Stein Assistant Special Projects Editor

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I bought this super durable canteen at the American Geophysical Union Conference, and use it every single day.

Rumpl donates $5 to the Trevor Project for every puffy Pride blanket sold. It’s a great way to do good and stay cozy.

TEST TEAM Will Egensteiner, Jennifer Sherry Associate Test Directors; Jeff Dengate, Matt Phillips Senior Test Editors; Roy Berendsohn, Adrienne Donica, Brad Ford, Amanda Furrer, Bobby Lea, James Lynch, Riley Missel, Morgan Petruny, Dan Roe Test Editors; Jimmy Cavalieri Image Editor; Lakota Gambill, Trevor Raab Photographers; Joël Nankman Logistician VIDEO Josh Wolff Director; Pat Heine Producer CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Joe Pappalardo, Kyle Mizokami, Caroline Delbert, Daniel Dubno, Wylie Dufresne, David Owen, Richard Romanski, James Schadewald, Joseph Truini, Nicholas Wicks EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Bill Strickland Popular Mechanics International Kim St. Clair Bodden Russia, South Africa • SVP/International Editorial Director

Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Acer Chromebook

A wonderful little write-up on some of the universe’s biggest concepts.

Every time I travel for work, I travel with my Acer Chromebook. It’s no-frills but gets the job done.

Editorial Offices 3939 West Drive Center Valley, PA 18034 HOW TO REACH US: Customer Care Visit Online POPCustServ@ CDSFulfillment.com; Phone 800333-4948; Mail Customer Care Service Dept. Popular Mechanics, PO Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593-0128. LICENSING AND REPRINTS: Contact Wyndell Hamilton, Wright’s Media, at 877-652-5295 ext. 102 or hearst@wrightsmedia.com. ISSUE 1, 2020

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Executive Vice Chairman & Former CEO, Hearst I was born at night, but not last night.

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I’m Chairman Emeritus of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and very passionate about the development of telemedicine here, especially since I watched my mother struggle with health problems.

The Best Thing I Have on My Desk

The purchase of Lady Borden vanilla ice cream for my family when I was a kid. It wasn’t entrepreneurial in the least, but it made me feel good to share that with them.

A thesaurus. I write a lot, and because I like to be a little more colorful, the thesaurus is quite helpful.

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As a director of Ralph Lauren, I’ve gifted these ties to family and friends for years. It’s fun to hear,

Nothing is more important to a company’s success than culture and all of us being loyal to the same objective. We should always remember to help colleagues when they need it and care about each other.

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Leave Something on the Table

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Why wouldn’t I like Leave Something on the Table? It’s my book and my story.

I’ve been a Callaway fan since the first Big Berthas. A good friend gave me this driver, and it tops all in distance.

March/April 2020

Socks the Terrier We don’t currently have a dog, but we do have very fond memories of our departed Jack Russell terrier, Socks, who bit everyone except for family.

T R E VO R R A A B (P R O D U C T S) ; CO U R T E S Y H E A R S T (B E N N AC K)

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From the Editor // ALE X A N DER GEORGE //

The Stealth Cooling Operation Inside the Mac Pro Hardware employee nor a YouTuber, I don’t need a Mac Pro. Even the base model is complete overkill. Spend a few (tens of) thousands of dollars on options, and you can get a 28-core CPU, and 1.5 terabytes of DDR4 memory. Those numbers imply a level of engineering I look at from a distance and say: That’s awesome. Same as w ith a lmost any product, industry-top performance like that creates heat that needs to be kept away from vital components. Most high-grade PCs do this with fans or pumpdriven water systems. But those can be loud, and if you’ve used a Mac in the last few years, you’ve noticed that near-silent operation is a non-negotiable design requirement. Which meant that the Pro’s creators had to find creative ways to exploit the laws of thermodynamics. A team led by Chris Ligtenberg, Apple engineer and pilot, handled the fans. “They’re still 8

March/April 2020

dy na mica l ly ba la nced, but they’re actually randomized in terms of their BPF [blade pass frequency],” he says. “So you don’t get huge harmonics that tend to be super annoying.” That means that audible but pleasantly pitched fan sounds can be less noticeable than a measurably quieter system. The randomization technique he’s describing came from research in car tires. “There’s a bit of math behind it, but you can create broadband noise instead of total noise with that technique,” he says. The fans supplement an aluminum case, which has t wo grids of precision holes, possibly the most ornate examples of passive cooling ever. Passive cooling structures absorb heat, away from vital components, then dissipate that energy into the air. The more exposed surface area, the better it works.

CLEAN YOUR COMPUTER When dust blocks airflow, computers save themselves from overheating by slowing down. Buy a microfiber cloth, rubbing alcohol, and some compressed air. Shut down, unplug, and hit every opening you can reach. Bonus points if you remove at least one panel.

Next time you see a motorcycle, look around the engine for a bunch of thin metal fins. That busy design creates a lot of surface area for a given volume of space. Fins need to stay in one position to keep air flowing through their channels. But the Pro Display XDR monitor had to be able to rotate 90 degrees, which would have trapped air. So Apple desinged the holes. “We wanted free flow through the channels, no matter the orientation,” says John Ternus, head of the Pro and Pro Display’s development. “[The pattern] gives us a lot of surface area, which is hugely beneficial.” Credit Apple’s ubiquity, at least in part, to that kind of detail obsession. It’s a controversial company. But however you feel about its practices or products, few other places would take temperature regulation this far.

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Deep Math // BY CA ROLINE DELBERT //

This Guy Found an Easier Way to Solve Quadratic Equations

OLVING THOSE PESKY

quadratic equations from high school algebra just became a lot easier. Dr. Po-Shen Loh, a mathematician at Carneg ie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, has derived an easier way to solve the classic sequence of squares, roots, and variables. Q ua drat ic equat ions a re often used in business to forecast profits, find minimum and maximum points, or determine the trajectory of a moving object. They include an x2, and teachers use the equations to show students how to find two solutions at once. Loh’s new process, outlined in a video on his personal website, circumvents traditional methods like “completing the square” and makes it simpler to find the solutions in fewer, more intuitive steps. L oh, fou nder of a mat hand-science-focused learning startup called Expii, said he came up with the new process for solving quadratic functions in September as he pondered easier ways to break down the formula for middle school students. “I was very surprised, as this method was easier to understand than what is typically written in textbooks,” he wrote on his website. “Adding this technique as a standard method would directly 10

March/April 2020

improve the learning experience for anyone trying to understand this topic, which is part of the regular mathematical curriculum everywhere in the world.” Quadratic equations manifest in precise forms within e duc at ion . S t udent s b eg i n solving them in algebra or prealgebra classes, but the lessons feature spoon-fed examples that

Dr. Loh also coaches the U.S. International Math Olympiad team. Under his guidance, the team won the competition in 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019.

work out easily, with whole integer solutions. Schools teach the Pythagorean theorem the same way; most examples end up solving out to Pythagorean triples, the small set of integer values that work cleanly into the equation (like a 5-12-13 triangle). Q ua drat ic equat ions a re polynomials, which are strings of math terms. An expression

PH OTO G R A PH BY ROSS M A N T LE

Dr. Loh’s Method like “x + 4” is a polynomial, but polynomials can have one or many variables in any combination, with their magnitude determined by what power the variables are taken to, like x2. That means a quadratic equat ion may b e w r it t en out a s something like x2 – 8x + 12 = 0. Dr. Loh’s method found a simpler way to derive the roots of a quadratic equation, namely via a shortcut through the tedious guess-and-check method used in factoring. Students traditionally try to guess for two numbers that have a certain sum and a certain product, by guessing what the factorizations of the product may be. Loh realized he could instead focus on the desired sum, looking for two numbers equidistant from the desired average (or half the desired sum). “The individual steps of this method had been separately discovered by ancient mathematicians,” Loh said. That includes the Babylonians and Greeks. “The combination of these steps is something that anyone could have come up with.” Prior to Loh’s method, the closest anyone had come to explaining this strategy was a math teacher, John Savage, who published an article in 1989 in the journal The Mathematics Teacher that described a similar idea. Still, Savage’s idea used different logic and an extra, unnecessary step. While it’s certainly deviant from conventional math strategy, Loh believes his method brings a level of intuition that will appeal to students, so long as they remember some simple generalizations about roots and how they relate within a

Suppose you have the following quadratic equation to solve:

x2 - 8x+ 12 = 0 ( x-2 )

( x-6 )

Need product to = 12 // Need sum to = 8

4 - u; 4 + u

16 - u2 = 12

u2 = 4

u= 2

Solution = ( 2,6 )

“Normally, when we do a factoring problem, we are trying to find two numbers that multiply to 12 and add to 8,” Dr. Loh said. Those two numbers are the solution to the quadratic, but it takes students a lot of time to solve for them, as they’re often using a guess-and-check approach. Instead of starting by factoring the product,

quadratic equation. It’s still complicated, but it’s less convoluted, especially if Loh is correct in thinking this will help students tackle quadratic equations that they’re more likely to encounter in the real world. That’s important. Mastering quadratics is a precursor to many precalculus courses. Because outside of classr o om-r e a d y e x a mple s , t he

12, Loh starts with the sum, 8. If the two numbers we’re looking for, added together, equal 8, then they must be equidistant from their average. So the numbers can be represented as 4–u and 4+u. When you multiply, the middle terms cancel out and you come up with the equation 16–u2 = 12.

When solving for u, you’ll see that positive and negative 2 each work, and when you substitute those integers back into the equations 4–u and 4+u, you get two solutions, 2 and 6, which solve the original polynomial equation. It’s quicker than the classic foiling method used in the quadratic formula—and there’s no guessing required. —Courtney Linder

quadratic method isn’t simple. Real examples and applications are messy, with ugly roots consisting of decimals or irrational numbers. As a student, it can be hard to know you’ve found the solution even in clean textbook problems, but Dr. Loh’s new method might bring simplicity to both the learning environment and work environment at the same time. March/April 2020

Drinks // BY A DRIEN NE DONICA //

To Make a Better Cocktail, You Need the Right Ice

lo oke d i ng r e d ient of a ny cocktail recipe. It keeps a drink cold, ensures that it isn’t too stiff, and even alters taste perception. Ask a good bartender about ice, and they’ll tell you why a particular shape or size is best. These variables might sound like minutiae, but they matter to bartenders, who have to strike a balance between ice’s chilling and diluting effects. Ice cools a cocktail as it melts, but the meltwater also dilutes the drink’s flavors. Some dilution is good— it balances flavors and tames high-proof liquor—but too much makes concoctions taste watery. The ideal combination of meltwater and a drink’s other ingredients is called full dilution. “The dilution and the temperature are inextricably linked,” says Dave Arnold, author of Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail. “You don’t get to have a colder drink and a less diluted drink. You can have either a colder drink or a less diluted drink.” One factor that affects the diluting power of ice is how you use it: Shaking is a more efficient

March/April 2020

chilling method than stirring, meaning shaken drinks are served more diluted (and colder) than those that are stirred. Size, shape, and temperature impact ice’s melt rate, so some types of cubes make more sense than others to use under certain circumstances. But as long as you understand the fundamentals, you can make a great cocktail with any type of ice. Large-format ice, generally cubes of 2 inches or larger, has a small ratio of surface area to vol-

Crystal-clear ice starts with letting hot water—which contains less trapped gas than cold— cool to room temperature prior to freezing it.

ume. It melts more slowly than other types of ice. To reach full dilution, stir your drink with several cubes for 30 seconds, or shake with one cube for about 15 seconds. When you’re shaking cocktails, “having the one big cube makes a huge difference in terms of the texture of the drink,” Arnold says. The large cube aerates ingredients as it combines them, resulting in a cocktail with a thin layer of froth on its surface after you’ve strained it. The slow melt rate of large-format ice also

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Drinks

makes it the preferred type for serving with strong drinks such as the Old Fashioned (bourbon or rye with a sugar cube or simple syrup, two dashes of Angostura bitters, and an orange twist), which are best served cold and relatively undiluted. Small ice chips, like those that come from store-bought bags or hotel vending machines, have a greater surface area-tovolume ratio. They melt faster, which can result in overdiluted drinks (bartenders refer to this as “shitty ice”). The trick to preventing such ice from trashing your cocktail is to use as much ice as will fit into your cocktail shaker, then stir or shake for a shorter amount of time—15 and 5 seconds, respectively—than you would when using larger ice. Keep in mind: Smaller ice isn’t always bad. Many tiki drinks and swizzles are served over crushed ice. In these cocktails, the continued chilling blunts the perception of sweetness. “Regardless of shape or clarity, the temperature of ice, I would say, is the most important thing,” says Jeffrey Morgenthaler, bar manager of Portland’s Clyde Common, a restaurant where the bar program has garnered six James Beard Award nominations. Although water freezes at 32°F, ice is usually much colder. Ice purists might even go so far as to set their freezers to the lowest possible temperature so that their superchilled ice will cool cocktails faster and leave a less diluted end product. That said, even shitty ice can’t screw up a cocktail too badly. Just make sure you don’t skip ice entirely. No one likes a roomtemperature margarita. 14

March/April 2020

How to Make Crystal-Clear Ice It’s a big ol’ myth that trapped gases and impurities from cloudy ice negatively impact a drink’s flavor. (Unless that ice is from a deep freezer that hasn’t been cleaned in ages, of course.) But to wow a crowd, there’s nothing like serving a Negroni over a crystalclear rock. “Anything that looks that awesome, I think, is going to make it taste a little more awesome,” author Dave Arnold says. Bartenders use professionally produced clear ice, but at home, you have to put in a little extra elbow grease.

(1) Fill a small hard-sided cooler with hot water from a faucet. Let the water cool, then place the cooler in your freezer with its lid open or off. Allow the water to freeze almost completely, which takes one to three days depending on

the cooler’s size and your freezer’s temperature. (2) Remove the cooler. Let the ice thaw slightly until it glistens, then invert the cooler onto a bar mat so the ice frees itself. Cloudy ice may have formed at the bottom of the cooler, while

the rest will be clear. (3) Set the block on its side, with the cloudy ice facing left or right. Cut off the cloudy portion by gently rubbing a bread knife back and forth on the top of the block until an indent forms. Then, while the knife is still touch-

ing the ice, tap the back of the blade with a mallet. The cloudy ice should break off cleanly. (4) Use the same method described in step 3 to cut the block into smaller 1- or 2-inch cubes. Use immediately, or place back in your freezer until needed.

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Science

// BY JEN NIFER LEM A N //

A Quantum Leap in the Classical World

HYS I CI STS HAVE LONG

struggled with a perplexing conundrum: Why do tiny particles such as atoms, photons, and electrons behave in ways that bacteria, bees, and bowling balls do not? In a phenomenon called quantum superposition, for example, individual units (say, of light) exist in two states at once. They are both waves and particles, only settling on one or the other if you specifically test for it. This is not something that will happen to an object like your desk. It won’t turn solid when you set your coffee cup on it, or liquid if you try to drink it. Superposition has only been observed in the smallest units of matter, which made physicist Markus Arndt of the University of Vienna curious about where the line is. Does quantum weirdness stop at some particular size? If so, which? To find out, Arndt and his team created a souped-up version

Metal Sheet Light Source

March/April 2020

of the famed double-slit experiment (see below), which can show whether individual particles are also behaving like waves. Then they worked their way toward increasingly massive objects. The synthetic molecules Arndt’s colleagues at the University of Basel in Switzerland developed for the study are the largest particles ever tested in such an experiment. Each contained as many as 2,000 atoms, according to research published in the journal Nature Physics. The molecules, which have a mouthful of a chemical formula (C707H260F908N16S53Zn4 ), “had to be massive, stable, and yet volatile enough to fly in a directed beam,” Arndt says. Next, the scientists built a special instrument, a macromolecule interferometer called the Long-Baseline Universal MatterWave Interferometer, or LUMI. With a baseline length of two meters, it’s the longest macromolecule interferometer ever built and is specially tuned to compensate for a number of tech-

nical challenges (for example, gravity and the rotation of the Earth). Inside the interferometer, the team used a nanosecond laser pulse of light to propel the molecules through an ultra-high vacuum tube, which shot them toward a series of slotted barriers to reveal patterns in a screen behind. To Ardnt’s delight, the mammoth molecules created the same interference pattern as smaller objects. Though they were particles, they were also acting like waves. The push and pull between what we know of the quantum and classical worlds has perplexed physicists for nearly a centur y. Concepts such as superposition are cornerstones of quantum physics. “And yet, we never find ourselves in such st at es t hat we col lo qu ia l ly describe as an object being in two positions at once,” Arndt says. In the hunt for a connection between the quantum and classical world, Arndt aims to push the limits even further, testing larger and more massive particles. “Why not see how far you can go?” physicist Herman Batelaan of the University of Nebraska– Lincoln, who was not involved in the study, tells Popular Mechanics. “It’s a beautiful motivation to do this work.”

Screen

In 1801, physicist Thomas Young conducted the first double-slit experiment, shooting a beam of light toward a barrier with two slits in it. Instead of forming two lines on a screen behind the barrier—in the same way that particles might—the beam formed a pattern of interference as if a wave had been pushed through the two slits. In 1908, Geoffrey Ingram Taylor repeated the experiment using a single photon. Even though the photon was a single particle, the wave interference pattern still appeared. That was strange enough, but then it got really weird: When scientists tracked the individual particles as they move through the slits, the monitored particles abandoned their wave-like state and showed up as two separate lines on the screen. It’s as if they knew they were being watched.

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Games & Toys // BY W ILLI A M HER K E W ITZ //

T WA S A WA R O F T I TA N S

you l i kely ne ver he a r d about. One year ago, two of the world’s strongest and most radically different chess engines fought a pitched, 100-game battle to decide the future of computer chess. On one side was Stockfish 8. This world-champion program approaches chess like dynamite handles a boulder—with sheer force, churning through 60 million potential moves per second. Of these millions of moves, Stockfish picks what it sees as the very best one—with “best” defined by a complex, handtuned algorithm codesigned by computer scientists and chess grandmasters. That algorithm values a delicate balance of factors like pawn positions and the safety of its king. On the other side was a new program called AlphaZero, a chess engine in some ways very much weaker than Stockfish— powering through just 1⁄100th as many moves per second as its opponent. But AlphaZero is an entirely different machine. 18

March/April 2020

Instead of deducing the “best” moves w ith a n a lgor ithm designed by outside experts, it learns strategy by itself through an artificial-intelligence technique called machine learning. Its programmers merely tuned it with the basic rules of chess and allowed it to play several million games against itself. As it learned, AlphaZero gradually pieced together its own strategy. The head-to-head battle was astonishing. In 100 games, AlphaZero never lost. The AI engine won the match with dazzling sacrifices, risky moves, and a beautiful style that was completely new to the world of computer chess. British chess grandmaster Mat thew Sa d ler a nd mathematician and chessmaster Natasha Regan are still piecing together how AlphaZero’s strategy works in their new book, Game Changer. We’re breaking open two moves in just one of the games to show the aggressive style, what it does, and what humans can learn from our new chess champion.

MOVE 16

ROOK TO G4

There’s a lot going on here, but focus on the pawns. Mainly, that AlphaZero has already lost one on the g file, and is sacrificing yet another with this jumpy rook move. (Stockfish’s next move is a queen leap to h2, gobbling up White’s lone soldier on the h file.) Run this position though many advanced chess engines, and most will tell you that with the sacrificed pieces, AlphaZero is now losing. So why is it doing this? Sacrifices are very common in chess, but they’re almost always offered up for an imme-

diate tactical edge or some other obvious recompense. But again and again, this magician-like chess engine makes early sacrifices like these as part of an extremely long-term strategy whose benefit won’t become clear for dozens of moves into the future. Eventually AlphaZero is going to fill the gaps left by the missing pawns with rooks, like a double-barrel shotgun. Those pawns, AlphaZero apparently believes, are worth less than the opportunity to assault the king from even more directions.

L A KOTA G A M B I L L

AI Is Now the Undisputed Champion of Computer Chess

MOVE 42

PAWN TO F4

By move 42, AlphaZero has sacrificed even more pawns, and is marching another poor, disposable sucker toward oblivion. But this move seals AlphaZero’s victory. That final pawn is about to crack open Stockfish’s king’s corner like a knife twisting open an oyster. Another key element to AlphaZero’s style is its absolute obsession toward attacks against the opponent’s king— rather than focusing on more delicate tactical plays. By move 42, both of Alpha-

Zero’s bishops control long open diagonals directed right at the king. Its queen is one leap away from the fray. And both rooks are likewise staring down Stockfish’s defense with unholy fury. In their book, Sadler and Regan write that it’s important for chess masters to embrace early strategic pawn sacrifices despite the risk: “Don’t rush! AlphaZero doesn’t attempt to deliver checkmate immediately but ensures that all its pieces are joining into the attack.”

March/April 2020

Machines // BY K YLE MIZO K A MI //

The Most Ill-Advised Weapon in U.S. History Was Too Dangerous to Even Test 20

March/April 2020

AST SUMMER, A SMALL

nuclear reactor exploded on a military testing site in Russia, killing seven people and causing a brief spike in radioact iv it y i n t wo ne a rb y cities. Even now, the details are still scarce; Russia’s nuclear agency blamed tests concerning “isotopic sources of fuel on a liquid propulsion unit.” But evidence suggests the mysterious accident was related to Russia’s development of the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile that would offer a nearly unlimited range, allowing it to fly much longer than conventionally powered cruise missiles. Not long after the explo-

sion, President Donald Trump revealed in a t weet that the United States ha s “similar, though more advanced technology” to the Burevestnik, some times referred to as “Skyfall.” The problem? The U.S. already looked into nuclear-powered cruise missiles more than 50 years ago—and rejected them as completely impractical. Back in the 1950s and ’60s, the U.S. Air Force wanted a third weapon in its arsenal in addition to its intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bombers for delivering retaliatory strikes against the Soviet Union in the event of nuclear war. Enter the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, or SLAM, which the Pentagon

CO U R T E S Y L AW R E N C E L I V E R M O R E N AT I O N A L L A B O R ATO R Y

A prototype of SLAM’s nuclear ramjet engine.

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Dept. 5482

Machines

3 MORE WEAPONS THAT NEVER MADE IT

March 2020

1 / F LY I N G PLATFORMS (1950S) A soldier could fire from the air while on the VZ-1 Pawnee, a flying platform kept aloft by two rotors in a duct, and move the craft by shifting his weight. It was too slow and small for combat. 2 / TAILSITTER AIRCRAFT (1950S) Tailsitters took off vertically and turned horizontally in the air, reversing the process when landing. But when pilots couldn’t pull that off, the Navy pulled the plug.

3 / SPY AIRSHIPS (2010S) The Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle was buoyant like a blimp and aerodynamic like a plane, packing a 2,750pound-sensor payload and keeping watch for weeks. Blame delays for its early demise.

in 1964 amid concerns about its cost-effectiveness and viability. While the hazardous levels of radioactivity unleashed by the nuclear engine were a big plus in some apocalyptic wartime scenarios, the weapon couldn’t be tested in the skies over the U.S. SLAM was also supplanted by intercontinental ballistic missiles, which, for all their flaws,

could deliver a thermonuclear warhead against a target in Russia in half an hour. SLAM was unofficially the worst nuclear weapon ever developed. And whatever Russia was really testing last summer in the Arctic, it’s likely something that should have remained an unused relic of the Cold War, just like our Big Stick.

CO U R T E S Y H I L L E R AV I AT I O N M U S E U M (1) ; I CO N I M AG E S/A L A M Y (2) ; CO U R T E S Y N O R T H A M G R U M M A N (3)

hoped to have ready for use by 1965. Had the U.S. actually built this thing, it would have been the most dangerous nuke ever made—and possibly the last. Aerospace g iant Convair designed SLAM (also known as “The Big Stick”) as an airbreathing, low-f lying cruise missile. A rocket booster would launch it into the air and send it to speeds where its nuclear-powered ramjet would kick in. Once activated, the engine would give SLAM a top speed of Mach 3.5. The missile would then cruise for days or even weeks, flying unusually low for a missile of its time—just 1,000 feet—to avoid being tracked by enemy radar. The supersonic shockwave was projected to leave a trail of devastation, flattening forests and buildings, and killing anyone in the missile’s flight path. Despite being advertised as a missile, SLAM was actually more like an unmanned bomber. Instead of a single warhead, it carried up to 26 hydrogen bombs, each hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. SLAM could fly a predetermined route over an enemy country or even continent, dropping H-bombs on destinations below. Once the Big Stick was out of bombs, the weapon would fly one last suicide mission, running into a final target that would shower the target zone with lethal radioactivity. Of course, the U.S. never built SLAM, because it was far too dangerous to even test (although most individual components, including the reactor, were successfully prototyped). The military scrapped the weapon

SLAM isn’t the only weapons system the military ultimately scrapped.

Food By the Numbers: How Ohmic Heating Saves Energy

// BY DAV ID GROSSM A N //

Electric Shocks Might Be the Secret to Better Gluten-Free Bread

ITH THE RISING POPU -

l a r it y of g lut en-f r e e brea d, t here is more demand. The catch? It takes longer to make. But scientists from the Institute of Food Technology of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria, may have come up with an energy-saving fix: using electric shocks to cook it from the inside out. They believe a concept called Ohmic heating could save energy and time during the manufacturing process, according to a paper published in the journal Food and Bioprocess Technology. Ohmic heating passes an electric current through food to generate heat and cook it. This is possible through what’s known as Ohm’s Law, where electrical energy is dissipated into heat “The heat is generated instantaneously within the complete dough,” Henry Jäger, Ph.D., professor of food technology at BOKU and paper coauthor, said in a press statement in October. “This is the main advantage of the Ohmic heating technology. Conventional baking in the oven requires more time, since the heat needs to penetrate from the outside toward the center of the dough.” Gluten-free bread in general requires around twice as much water as wheatb a s e d br e a d du r i ng pr e p a r at ion . But more water can make the dough thinner and give it a lower viscosity. Lessviscous dough often takes longer to bake,

March/April 2020

a time suck that can make gluten-free bread more expensive. Ohmic heating also provides uniform heating to a loaf of bread. That uniformity, along with the quick-acting nature of Ohmic heating, could solve several problems related to glutenfree bread. “In order to really benefit from these advantages and obtain best results, the optimal process and product characteristics had to be identified,” says Jäger. “Achieving such convincing results and improving the efficiency of the process at the same time was also surprising for us.” The Ohmic bread seemed to be superior in a cook-off against traditional gluten-free bread—it had 10 to 30 percent more volume, the team reports. The texture was also better. Crumbs were “softer and more elastic,” and the pores “were smaller and more evenly distributed.” And, as the scientists theorized, Ohmic heating saved serious time and energy—as much as a two-thirds reduction on both counts. “At the end, the subsequent applic at ion of t h r e e d i f fer ent pr o c e s s intensities with different holding times proved to be the most suitable option,” Jäger says. “An initial baking step at two to six kilowatts for 15 seconds followed by one kilowatt for 10 seconds and a final baking at 0.3 kilowatts for five minutes is the recipe for the successful production of gluten-free bread using Ohmic heating.”

Sure, the Ohmic method saves energy—but just exactly how much? We tapped Sudhir Sastry, Ph.D., professor of food engineering at the Ohio State University, to crunch the numbers on how much energy Ohmic heating saves as opposed to using a conventional oven to bake a loaf of gluten-free bread.

OHMIC HEATING ENERGY NEEDED PER LOAF:

280 KJ

EQUIVALENT TO POWERING A 100W LIGHT BULB FOR

45 MIN

VS HOME OVEN ENERGY NEEDED PER LOAF:

6,210 KJ EQUIVALENT TO POWERING A 100W LIGHT BULB FOR

17 HRS 15 MIN

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Sci-Fi // BY DA R REN ORF //

The 2020 Sci-Fi Film Guide

H I S I S A VE RY GOO D

year for sci-f i. With n o m aj or A v e n g e r s blockbusters (thanks to Thanos’s shenanigans last year) and Star Wars going on a cinematic hiatus, maybe, just maybe, other films will be able to have their own moment.

F E B R U A R Y 2 8 // THE INVISIBLE MAN

Any adaptation of an H.G. Wells classic is going to grab our attention. Starring Elizabeth Moss, The Invisible Man takes Wells’s work and modernizes it into something that seems to be speaking to today’s #MeToo movement. Whether the film succeeds with this update is hard to say, but we’ll be watching to find out. PRELIMINARY VERDICT:

Looks Promising

One of the bolder, more eclectic YA stories to emerge in the wake of Harry Potter. Based on a series of eight science fiction– fantasy (our two favorite things) novels of the same name, this movie takes place in a realm called the Lower Elements, populated by dwarves, fairies, 26

March/April 2020

and a computer hacker who also happens to be a centaur. Yeah, it’s that kind of thing. It’s not a great sign that the film’s original 2019 release date was pushed into this year, but we’re trying to stay positive. PRELIMINARY VERDICT: Looks Promising

In The Invisible Man, Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss) fights to prove her deceased ex-husband is alive, invisible, and violent.

J U L Y 1 0 // G H O S T B U S T E R S : AFTERLIFE

Afterlife likely wants to right the ship after 2016’s Ghostbusters reboot. This time, the story will be a direct sequel to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, rather than Paul Feig’s misguided pseudo-

CO U R T E S Y U N I V E R S A L P I C T U R E S

M A Y 2 9 // A R T E M I S F O W L

sequel. It could be good, but we won’t hold out hope. PRELIMINARY VERDICT: Skip

what’s come before—but we’re ready. PRELIMINARY VERDICT: Must See

J U L Y 1 7 // T E N E T

N O V E M B E R 6 // E T E R N A L S

Few things excite movie-goers more than a new Christopher Nolan film. Little is known about his new project—until this past December, we thought it was going to be a full-on spy thriller—but the recent trailer hinted at so many sci-fi elements (including some timey-wimey stuff), we’re pretty confident Tenet could be one of the top sci-fi(ish) films of the year. PRELIMINARY VERDICT: Must See

The Eternals have been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) for a while now—you just didn’t know it. In Guardians of the Galaxy, the Collector (Benicio del Toro) described Celestials— gods, basically—with power to annihilate entire planets. The Celestials created the Eternals, the result of experiments on early humans, and also the sinister Deviants. Like Guardians, Eternals will bring a heavier dose of sci-fi to the Marvel film lineup and will help illuminate some of the cosmic machinations that put the U in the MCU. PRELIMINARY VERDICT: Looks Promising

A U G U S T 2 1 // B I L L & T E D FACE THE MUSIC

We’re suckers for time-travel movies, and we’re particular suckers for Bill & Ted timetravel movies. So, we’re eagerly awaiting the return of the Wyld Stallyns. Face the Music arrives nearly 30 years after Bill and Ted’s last adventure, Bogus Journey. With both leads being more dad than rad these days, this will likely be a slightly different film than

D E C E M B E R 1 8 // D U N E

Starring everyone (Timothée Chalamet, Jason Momoa, Oscar Isaac, Dave Bautista, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya), Dune is

the 2020 interpretation of one of sci-fi’s most holy texts. It’s shaping up to be an absolute monster of a film poised to be the Next Big Sci-Fi Thing. Set some 20,000 years into humanity’s future, when our race has spread across the universe, an epic clash between the houses Atreides and Harkonnen unfolds on the desert world of Arrakis. The struggle’s outcome will change the future forever. Dune’s sprawl has def ied cinematic interpretation for decades. The book was first in the hands of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, then those of David Lynch, who spun the text into what is still considered his most divisive film. Hopefully, third time’s a charm as director Denis Villeneuve tries to wrangle author Frank Herbert’s epic imagination into a manageable runtime (though it's already going to be be at least two movies). Villeneuve’s proven himself this generation’s sci-fi master with Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Be prepared. Greatness is in the making. P R E L I M I N A R Y V E R DICT: Must See

CO U R T E S Y T E S L A

A Sci-Fi Defense of the Cybertruck So this is what happens when a Blade Runner fan also happens to be a multibillionaire. Released in November 2019 in Los Angeles, the exact time and place of the 1982 movie, the Cybertruck is a cross between Doc Brown’s DeLorean from Back to the Future and K’s far-flung Peugeot in Blade Runner 2049. The future is very geometric, apparently, and Cybertruck fully embraces angular sci-fi design. From a gearhead’s perspective, the newest Tesla is completely perplexing. For a sci-fi fan? It’s love at first sight.

March/April 2020

Hoax(?) // BY K RISTIN A LIBBY //

Could TikTok Be Spying on You?

March/April 2020

IKTOK HAS YOUR

c h i l d r e n’s h o m e addresses. The FaceApp ha s your photo and the ability to predict what you’ll look like over the course of your life. Your hotel check-in app shows your travel destinations, room preferences, and upcoming stays. This might not seem like a big deal, but all of this data

could be allowing other nations to attack the security of Americans through geotargeting, facial recognition, and pattern projection. A smartphone has the potential to be a more useful weapon than a missile. According to N PR , some foreign nations, such as Saudi Arabia, use information shared across apps to identify dissidents and potential spies or to hack into computers. Additionally, the data collected through apps ca n b e u sed t o creat e psychographic models—groupings of people based on their shared psychological characteristics—that are deployed in disinformation campaigns. Apps like the wildly popular TikTok are particularly vulnerable. Owned by a Chinese company, TikTok utilizes an algorithm that can be tuned to distribute news or content that sways public opinion—a form of information control that has proven societal impact. And China’s 2017 national intelligence law contains language that requires companies to comply with intelligence gathering operations if asked. “China has a very different legal framework and perspective on the rule of law,” says Andrea Little Limbago, chief social scientist at Virtru, an encryption and privacy company. “TikTok claims they do not store data in China, but this is difficult to validate and does not address data privacy concerns prior to February 2019. This is especially relevant as user data could inform intelligence campaigns targeting American citizens.” (You might remember that in Febr uar y 2019, TikTok wa s

I LLU S T R AT I O N BY G R AY H O O D

Ask All This to Keep Data Safe fined for its data privacy usage.) Given China’s histor y of data interference and its faulty human rights record, Americans should be concerned about data weaponization. Adira Levine, cybersecurity fellow at the public policy think tank New America, notes that you should also consider the permissions you are granting when you hit “agree” or when prompted to change your device settings. Such permissions create pathways for other entities, including companies and advertisers, to access the data. The more people who have access to your phone and your data, the less secure you are. It ’s d i f f ic u lt t o d i r e c t ly

attribute cyberattacks or cyberspying operations to specific foreign nations. It’s even more difficult to make correlations between apps and nation-state attacks. However, the growing number of cyberattacks and the increasing reports of apps with potential for misuse should raise a red flag. Ask yourself if it’s really worth giving away your personal data to a company in China just to pass the time with a mindless app. And think about apps before you download them. The only way we’ll be resilient to cyberattacks is for every individual to be more critical of their own phone, their own apps, and their own safety.

PROTECT YOUR DATA FROM UNSECURED WI-FI & BLUETOOTH CONNECTIVITY You’ve probably heard this before, but using unsecured wi-fi makes your data vulnerable. It may be tempting to log on to free public wi-fi, but try to refrain from using it. If you find yourself in a position where you absolutely need it, follow these tips for secure browsing: 1 / USE UNSECURED WI-FI SPARINGLY

and refrain from accessing personal information such as

bank and creditcard accounts. 2 / DON’T DO ANY ONLINE SHOPPING or purchasing

where you’ll need to enter your credit card credentials or other sensitive information. 3 / TURN OFF AUTOMATIC CONNECTIVITY so you’re in control

of when and where you log on. 4 / REMEMBER TO TURN YOUR BLUETOOTH OFF whenever

you’re not using it. If you usually leave yours on, the data on your device is open to anyone with their own Bluetoothenabled device. All they have to do is connect and they can access your info. 5 / CONSIDER INVESTING IN A VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK such as

ExpressVPN ($99.95/ year), which offers 24/7 support and coverage across 94 countries.

1 2 3 4 5 6

WHAT DATA IS COLLECTED? Allow as little data as possible to be collected. The safest amount is none.

HOW IS IT USED? Many apps sell data to thirdparty companies, who use it for advertising purposes. The best scenario is one where the data is used only by the app company.

HOW LONG IS IT KEPT? Data more than a year old serves little purpose to outside parties since the most up-to-date info is the most valuable. Seek shorter timelines.

DOES THE APP NEED YOUR LOCATION DATA? A number of apps automatically collect this, but very few actually need it. You can generally turn this off in your OS settings.

DOES THE APP NEED ACCESS TO YOUR CONTACTS, CAMERA, OR MICROPHONE? Most of these features aren’t necessary, but many apps still ask for access. Granting these permissions makes the data on your device— like personal photos— vulnerable.

WHERE IS THE DATA STORED? Data laws vary by country; reconsider sharing data held in nations that may have incentive to use it for advancing political agendas (like Russia, China, and North Korea).

March/April 2020

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B Y M I K E O J O // P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y J O S É M A N D O J A N A

W H Y I’M BUILDING M Y OW N

March/April 2020

’ I

I ’VE ALWAYS B E E N fascinated with

Ojo chronicles his build on his YouTube channel, MojoGrip.

airplanes. I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, where there were barely any roads. The main road out of our area wasn’t paved, and during the rainy season it would become flooded and muddy. When my sisters and I walked along the flooded road to school, I’d see airplanes flying above us. I’d be envious of whoever was in the plane because we were down on the ground, walking in mud. My family moved to New York City when I was about 12. At that time, I never imagined I would be f lying planes. None of my friends or family members encouraged my obsession with planes, and still when I f ly, I don’t see many pilots who look like me. When I was in my twenties, after I met my wife and we moved to California together, opportunity arose. I read about this 15-year-old girl who flew herself across the country. I said to myself: It’s now or never. That girl’s story made me realize I had no more excuses to give. I went up for the first time the week of my 26th birthday, and now I’m building my own airplane. For most pilots, flying on your own is unattainable because it’s really expensive. Even just getting your pilot’s license costs a lot of money. But that’s nothing compared to buying your own plane. My dream plane—it’s actually on my dream board, this collage of aspirational images I keep in

INSIDE MIKE’S KIT SLING TSI KIT The Sling TSi is a four-person, single-engine plane from The Airplane Factory, complete with glass cockpit and gull wing doors. It’s modern, easy to fly, and packed with as many cool toys as you’re willing to install (the more, the better).

March/April 2020

ROTAX 915 IS Even at max takeoff weight, with four adults and a load of fuel, the Rotes 915 iS can lift the plane into the sky at 1,000 feet per minute and cruise at 155 knots . Computerization keeps the engine running at maximum efficiency.

AIRMASTER CONSTANT SPEED PROP A constant-speed propeller adjusts the pitch angle of the blades to maintain speed regardless of engine rpm. This allows the plane’s engine to create different amounts of thrust depending on what stage of flight you’re in.

GARMIN G3X TOUCH This glass touchscreen display provides many of the same avionics features the big boys have, including flight charts, airport diagrams, a moving GPS map, and all manner of aircraft-specific gauges like fuel, flaps, trim, alerts, and engine statistics.

my office—is a four-seater kit plane from The Airplane Factory called the Sling TSi. It’s a major financial commitment—$200,000 to $250,000 if you want all the bells and whistles— but by building the plane yourself, you save tons of cash. It takes about 1,500 man-hours to assemble the TSi. When you build your own plane, you’re basically trading time for money. The heart of any plane is its engine, and the TSi comes with a great one. It’s the Rotax 915 iS, a turbocharged 1.35liter four-cylinder unit that can provide full takeoff power up to 15,000 feet. The Rotax’s forced induction allows me to get full power (141 horsepower) even at altitude, where a standard engine might see a significant reduction in how hard it can push. The TSi is also strong on fuel economy (7 to 8 gallons per hour of standard automobile fuel) and comes with all sorts of computer wizardry to help me, the pilot. A Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) system helps control fuel burn, blade angle, and other aspects of engine performance, which makes my life much easier. It has room for four adults and can go 800 to 1,000 miles in one shot, and best of all (depending on your point of view), you get to assemble it yourself. I looked at other kits, but the TSi just felt right. I took a flight in one with my wife, and afterwards she said, “I can see you flying that airplane.” You don’t need a ton of skills to build an airplane, but it’s a good idea to take a class or two. There are aviation workshops in most big cities, and when you find the right people, the community can be incredibly welcoming to newcomers. The aviation community is also very small, and you’ll always be able to find

GARMIN G5 ELECTRONIC FLIGHT INSTRUMENT Pairing up with the touchscreen, this instrument provides the pilot a digital attitude indicator essential for flying the aircraft. It includes horizon-based pitch and roll, airspeed, altitude, and vertical speed.

people who have been through the process. I’m using a build-assist program, which adds some cost but gives me a dedicated facility to build the plane (it takes a lot of room!) as well as a lot of expertise from experienced builders. There’s no room for error in aviation, so having someone who has built a plane before to hold your hand is a great comfort. With my build, we started with constructing the empennage—the tail— and worked forward from there. You have to run electrical wires through every part of the plane, being careful to route everything safely and avoid sharp edges that could damage the wiring down the line. You have to be particularly cautious when working with the flight control surfaces, such as the horizontal and vertical stabilizers at the back. Those are critical to safe flying. After the body is assembled, we’ll wire up the avionics and electrical work, mount the engine, and set up the computers, radio, antennas, and everything else. I’m most excited for the avionics. I learned to fly behind the Garmin G3X system, and that’s what’s going in my plane. I’ll be wiring it all up, hooking up backup batteries, and connecting the autopilot. Then there’s the parachute. The TSi’s parachute is not like a skydiver’s chute: It’s a giant ballistic parachute that can bring the entire aircraft safely to the ground in case of a dire emergency. It’s reliable, but there’s one catch: I can’t test my parachute ahead of time. I just have to hope it works. So that’s one thing I absolutely have to get right, because you literally only get one shot. The relationship between pilot and plane is always continued on page 80

GARMIN GTN 650 This unit combines weather, terrain data, flight traffic updates and the all important radios on a single device. You can plot waypoints and glide paths, and plan takeoffs and landings to keep yourself safe, stay informed, and remain on course.

GARMIN GTX 45R It’s important to communicate where you are in the sky, so this ADS-B transponder talks to other aircraft and air traffic controllers to establish your location. It also provides automatic traffic alerts and weather updates to help your situational awareness—crucial to any safe flight.

4 KIT PLANES TO TACKLE IN 2020 1

PIPISTREL PANTHERA The Panthera has retractable landing gear and a sexy, aerodynamic shape. A glass cockpit and extra-comfy seats make long journeys feel luxurious. panthera-aircraft.com

SABERWING The manufacturer notes that this plane is such a quick build, you’ll “be sitting in the fuselage within a few hours of opening the kit.” For those who can’t wait to play with their new toy. azaleaaviation.com

JUSTAIRCRAFT SUPERSTOL The SuperSTOL has lowspeed capabilities that allow it to land on short runways or small clearings. It just needs 150 feet of runway to take off. justaircraft.com

DARKAERO Darkaero claims this is the longest-range aircraft you can build—1,700 statute (land) miles at 275 mph cruising speed. That can fly you from Boston to Houston. Production begins in 2020. darkaero.com

STRATOS 07 BALLISTIC PARACHUTE In case of a catastrophic emergency such as total engine failure, this failsafe pops out of the back of the aircraft and floats the plane to the ground, keeping the pilot and any passengers safe and sound.

March/April 2020

5 PROJECTS THAT ARE BUILT TO LAST

By Popular Mechanics Editors and Contributors

AN HEIRLOOM TOOLBOX By Brad Ford and Roy Berendsohn

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 might cherish long after we’re gone. To do that, we created a desig n that prioritizes precision and patience during construction. The joinery for the corners, handle, and uprights has 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 shop. 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 composed 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.

March/April 2020

PH OTO G R A PH Y BY T R E VO R R A A B

March/April 2020

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

▶ How to cut dovetails It’s possible to hand cut the doveWe’ve outlined the trickiest parts here. To see the full tails, but it takes a lot of practice instructions—including to make them fit well together. recommended wood types We used a Rockler dovetail jig to and measurements—go to cut the box corners. The jig will popularmechanics.com/ let you do it on your first try, and toolbox. templates are available to make a variety of dovetail patterns (we used Rockler’s Distinctive Template A for this box). If this is your first dovetail joint, practice 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 oriented 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 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.

March/April 2020

I LLU S T R AT I O N BY G EO RG E R E T S ECK

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.

▶ Making the handle The handle is made from three pieces of wood glued together to form a single lamination. Rip and crosscut 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 center of the long side of the lamination— this will be the 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 center, 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). You’ll want the mortise-andtenon 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.

5. Glue the handle lamination. 6. 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.

March/April 2020

for more than 30 years. Old tool files, in particular, make for great knives because they tend to be made out of higher-quality steel and are already formed in a workable shape. Plus, there’s something special about working with what you have. “There is a certain satisfaction that comes from giving new life to these things rather than letting them go to waste,” Brach says. ▶ Design your blade For your first attempt, Brach recommends a standard survival knife shape similar to the Marine Corps Ka-Bar design. This shape’s long cutting edge is bolstered by a tapered edge on the top of the blade, making it well suited for both cutting and piercing. The steel of the blade extends through the handle (commonly referred to as “full tang”), and it retains its full thickness along the spine of the blade, making it very strong. Sketch out your shape to scale on paper by tracing an existing blade or drawing freehand using a reference image. The sketch doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should resemble the profile of the knife you intend to make. Cut the drawing out and trace it onto your file using a permanent marker. Save the cutout—the marker will fade under heat, so you may need to redraw lines as you work.

By Alex Hollings

▶ Grind the profile Put on your safety glasses and either clamp the file to a sturdy table or place it in a vise. Use the cut-off wheel on your angle grinder to begin roughing out the basic shape of the knife. Cut straight lines that are slightly outside the curved shape of the blade. Once you’ve removed as much material as you can, swap in the grinding wheel. Begin shaping the steel into the final profile of the blade and handle.

Getting started Knife making can be complex, but it doesn’t have to be. You can create some incredible pieces using things you either already have lying around or that are available for cheap at your local hardware store. While there are lots of companies out there that specialize in selling high-quality steel forged specifically for knife making, a more affordable place to start is at the bottom of your toolbox, says Paul Brach, a knifemaker

▶ Center-scribe the metal Lay the knife flat on your workbench or table and lay the drill bit next to the blade, with the tip of the bit facing what will become the knife’s sharp edge. Leave the bit flat on the table as you press its tip into the edge of the metal, and scrape a line down the length of what will become the cutting surface of the knife. Now flip the knife over and repeat, scratching another line down the length of the blade using the drill bit. If your bit is the same width as the metal, both lines will overlap. If the bit

A HANDCRAFTED KNIFE

March/April 2020

isn’t an exact match, there will be two lines. In that case, the space between the two lines will be your centerpoint when grinding out the blade’s edge.

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED 1. An old tool file 2. A drill bit that’s about the same thickness as your file (usually ¼ or 1⁄3 inch) 3. Hardwood lump charcoal and a charcoal grill 4. Hair dryer and around three feet of metal pipe wide enough to blow the dryer through

▶ Grind the edge When shaping your blade’s edge, Brach recommends holding the angle grinder tight to your sides and moving your body at the hips, rather than your arms, as you grind. Start near the handle of your knife and grind toward the tip of the blade, being intentional and careful not to slip the grinder off the blade and cut yourself. Leave the blade edge about as thick as a dime. “It’s important to keep your grind symmetrical, removing the same amount of material from each side,” Brach says. Otherwise, you’ll increase the chance of a significant warp during heat treatment. This step will take some time, depending on the power of your angle grinder and how

detail-oriented you choose to be. It could take 20 minutes (for a rough-cut utility knife) or several hours (for a finer piece of cutlery). When you’re done grinding, you’ll have a knife that could handle a number of jobs—but until you treat the steel properly, it won’t offer the longevity or resilience you’d expect. ▶ Heat the blade in your DIY forge Light the charcoal in your grill. Feed the nose of the hairdryer into one end of the pipe and stick the other end of the pipe next to the burning coals. The combination of high-temperature charcoal and forced hot air will create embers hot enough to heat-treat your blade. Hardwood lump charcoal will be hot enough to work with— more than 1,500°F—in around 15 minutes and will burn at that heat for about an hour. (You’ll have to add more charcoal once or twice during the process.) Using your tongs or continued on page 82

5. Metal tongs or pliers with extended handles 6. Clamps or a vise 7. Angle grinder with a flapper wheel and heads for metal cutting and grinding 8. Eye protection 9. An empty 5-quart metal pail 10. A gallon of vegetable oil for quenching

ALEX HOLLINGS

11. Paracord or leather strips and slow-set epoxy

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Rafters

Mortiseandtenon joints

A 200-YEAR SHED

Corner posts

n 1989, my father-in-law taught me to smoke meats and cheeses. I was a timber frame builder—I have my own company, called OakBridge Timber Framing—and I wanted a home project to help me unwind in the evenings and on weekends. I combined my passion for building with the skills my father-in-law had given me and I built my family an old-fashioned timber-frame smokehouse. My design is strong but simple. A timberframe structure isn’t just slapped up. Compared to a stick-built home, it uses more substantial cuts of wood and is fitted together with unique joinery like mortises, tenons, and wooden pegs as opposed to studs. The latter might not be able to withstand heavy winds or storms, but I’ve seen timber frames survive tornado hits. They just won’t fall. My smokehouse shed will be around for my family and the younger generation after them. Plus, the timber-frame method isn’t only for smokehouses—it can be the heart of almost any structure. My smokehouse isn’t just functional: It takes me back in time. I go in to check my bacons and it’s a step back 100 years. Sometimes when I’m out there banking the smokehouse for the night, I wonder why I’m working so hard on something so old-fashioned, but it’s worth all the time and effort once you have everyone enjoying the things you’ve made. —Johnny Miller, as told to Matt Allyn and Tyler Daswick

For a full list of steps and materials, visit popularmechanics.com/timberframe.

Brace beams

March/April 2020

Sill

Tie beams

CONSTRUCTION STEPS

Decide what type of wood to use. A lightweight wood like poplar or pine will make it easy to lift the timber into place, but if your timber will be exposed to the elements in the absence of siding or roofing, opt for white oak, Douglas fir, or cedar. Cut your beams, rafters, roof boards, and siding boards to size, then cut the joints. Start with the mortises and tenons. A standard mortise is 4 inches deep and 1.5 inches wide to accommodate a 3.75-inch tenon. A mortise should be a quarter-inch deeper than the tenon. The bird’s-mouth joints on the rafters should be 1.5 inches vertical by 6 inches horizontal. You can use a circular saw for most of these cuts and a 1.5-inch drill bit for the mortises, but a corner chisel makes a nice tenon, too. A timber frame’s sill supports the walls and secures them to the foundation. To ensure stability, drill two anchor bolts up through the foundation into each beam of the sill (one at each end of each beam, for eight bolts total). The bolts should reach all the way through the sill so you can secure the nut, but if you’d like to hide the hardware, drill a 2-inch-deep hole in the sill to meet the anchor bolt before it peeks above the wood, attach the nut, then plug the hole with a wooden peg. Assemble the frame for the front (the taller) and back (shorter) walls with your materials laid on the ground, rather than standing on the sill. Fit the horizontal tie beams between

I LLU S T R AT I O N BY G EO RG E R E T S ECK

the corner posts before locking in the diagonal brace beams between the tie beams and posts. Then, raise the completed walls onto the sill. Attach the front and back walls together by securing the tie beams that run the length of your structure. Lean the erected walls outward, brace them with conventional lumber, and align the ties before fitting the walls back together. Then peg the joints from the outside in (you’ll need 36 pegs total) to accommodate any siding you’ll use. Your pegs should have one sharp end so they’ll pass through the tenons and secure the joints.

PH OTO G R A PH BY A N D R E W S PE A R

Miller’s smokehouse has produced holiday turkeys, homemade deer jerky, and prize-winning cheeses.

Attach the four rafters on top of the structure, then screw or nail down the 2x boards, then the steel, for the roof. If you’ll be using your shed as a smokehouse, opt for tongue-andgroove boards—they’re best to prevent smoke from escaping. Screw or nail on 1x6 tongue-and-groove boards for siding, with a second layer on top if you’d like a better seal (ideal for a smokehouse). Or, if you can find them, use 1x12 tongue-andgroove boards and nail 3-inch battens over the seams between the boards to create a reliable one-layer seal.

March/April 2020

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

A HOMEBREWING PHILOSOPHY

March/April 2020

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-centered ales that connect us to awesome people such as the Grateful Dead and our coworkers. 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 summer 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 nonalcoholic birch beer at Boothbay Craft Brewery, which is near Dogfish Head, Maine, where I spent my summers growing up. 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 a sophomore at Brown University. I try not to force anything, but if you go into his bedroom, he’s dog-eared my homebrew books. Sitting in our kitchen for three hours and making an all-grain homebrew 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

L A KOTA G A M B I L L

Calagione is committed to unconventional flavor 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. ▶ 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 five-gallon batch, he says. Less is best with spices such as cardamom seeds (one ounce), fresh ginger (two ounces), spruce tips (two ounces), and cinnamon sticks (two), all of which you’ll want to add toward the last 10 minutes of the boil, the stage when you sterilize the wort and add the hops. Steep the spices in a muslin sack or specialty 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 sterilizes the seaweed. “We don’t pasteurize,” Calagione says.

*Suggested measures are for five-gallon batches. Feel free to experiment.

▶ Look to fruit for flavor For stone fruit and berries, Calagione favors fresh produce or aseptic (contaminant-free) frozen purées added at the boil’s finish and simmered for around 20 minutes at 160°F to 170°F, then strained out before fermentation. You’ll use more fruit than you might think: around 10 pounds of crushed blueberries and sour cherries (or half that amount if you’re using a purée). 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,” continued on page 82

March/April 2020

A SELFSUSTAINING GARDEN By Jessie Kissinger

o many plants that we enjoy—especially trees—are the gift of someone else’s foresight. A sapling in one generation becomes a landmark in the next. My parent’s forest garden, a 25x25foot space behind the driveway, layered with trees, shrubs, and ground cover, technically started with the Holtzes. As the prior owners of the home, they planted cedars along the back fence. When my parents moved in 30 years ago, their neighbors had an enormous hackberry tree that dropped seeds into our yard. A few of those seeds grew into trees that ultimately stretched into a canopy above the cedars. Then 10 years ago, my mom dug up two redbud trees, the size of twigs, from her father’s garden when he died and replanted them in her yard. Now, at 15 feet tall, they form the understory. And last year, we added witchhazel and a buttonbush, carved out short pathways, and laid a ground cover of shade-loving perennials—columbine, oak and palm sedge grasses, and ferns that will someday creep along the ground and cover the soil entirely. We can’t predict who will inherit the garden next, but in a way, the work we’re doing now is for them. Just as the cedars and the redbuds were for us. The key to a long-lived forest garden is biodiversity—and that goes beyond flora. You need to attract and feed beneficial creatures of all kinds, including insects and birds to pollinate plants, spread seeds, and regulate pest populations, as well as microbes and fungi to enrich the soil. Here, Jessi Bloom, owner of NW Bloom Ecological Services and author of Creating Sanctuary, shares some guidelines for designing your own forest garden.

March/April 2020

Shorter trees

Herbaceous plants

Ground cover

Bloom designed this garden to grow food in Mill Creek, WA.

▶ Choose plants that like the current—and future—temperature and rainfall of your region as well as the light conditions and soil of your yard. Generally, this leads to indigenous plant choices. Check the USDA Plants Database to see if plants you like grow in areas with similar conditions to your area. Take into account the climate change projected for your region within your lifetime—be that higher temperatures, increased storm activity and rainfall, or drought. This will improve the garden’s adaptability in the future.

Mimic forest ecology by selecting plants that occupy different layers of the forest.

Tall trees

Shrubs

▶ Space plants so that they capture as much sunlight as possible. Note the angle of the sun, especially at the summer solstice—the time when many plants are most active—to see how it could impact hours of light and shade. Then block out the plants according to their mature sizes (width and height). Place smaller, sun-loving plants south of taller ones so they’ll get more sun access. Fill shadowy areas with shade-loving plants to take advantage of the leftover sun dapple. Catching as much sunlight as possible maximizes photosynthesis, which stimulates the soil biology, which in turn gives nutrients to the plants and improves their immunity. ▶ Work with the landscape as it changes over time. When you plant a sapling, it could take five to 10 years to cast significant shade. In the meantime, seed the area around the tree with a sunny pollinator mix of annuals and herbaceous perennials from a local native plant nursery. These plants can cover the ground, activate the soil biology to keep plants extra healthy, build biomass, and attract beneficial insects into the system. Once the shade arrives, layer in herbaceous woodland perennials as the sun lovers recede.

CO U R T E S Y J E S S I B LO O M

▶ Provide a constant source of food for pollinators. Make sure that at least three to four varieties of flowers are in bloom throughout the growing season. Add an insect hotel—a man-made shelter for bugs—to house beneficial insects, and a fountain or shallow birdbath for a reliable water source.

▶ Avoid plants that are susceptible to diseases or pests in your area. High-yield fruit trees such as apples tend to require fertilizers and often have pest issues and shorter lives. Best case scenario, they’ll produce for about 40 years. If you want fruit, try lower-maintenance varieties like jujube, which likes a warm, dry climate with sandy soil, or species native to your area, such as serviceberry or wild plum in the Midwest and Northeast. Nut trees can live and produce for hundreds of years. When harvesting, take only what you need. Leave the rest for the critters.

▶ Be prepared to nurture your garden for three to five years. “It’s like having a baby,” says Bloom. “The more work you put in up front, the more resilient it will be down the road.” Most important: Know how many inches of water your plants need per week, track rainfall, and water supplementally when the rain isn’t enough. You’ll probably need to do some weeding. It can also be helpful early on to add mulches, compost, and compost tea to boost the soil’s microbe population. After the establishment period—if you designed it well—the garden should sustain itself, like a wild forest.

March/April 2020

by W I L L I A M HERKEWITZ

photography by COLE WILSON

March/April 2020

THE DIGITAL TOOLBOX

Charles Anderson’s Star Destroyer stretches almost 5 feet long, but opposite the enormity is an attention to detail—the filigree of LEGO figurine hands ringing the docking bay; the barnacle-like swath of pipes that make up the vents, pipes, and cannons—that makes the ship an artistic, architectural marvel. It took Charles 15 months and more than 500 hours to design and build his LEGO version of the iconic Imperial Star Destroyer, first imprinted on the collective consciousness when it crawled across the opening shot of Star Wars in 1977. Like the ship in the movie, Charles’s destroyer intimidates with its size. Weighing 44 pounds, the creation boasts almost 20,000 LEGO bricks, three times as many as the biggest set LEGO has ever published (the 2017 Star Wars: Millennium Falcon set, priced at $800). But it’s not the mass, weight, or obsessive detail that make Charles’s starship so remark50

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able. “There a re def initely big ger a nd more impressive L EG O St a r Dest royers out there,” says Charles, 43, a senior technical animator in Raleigh, North Carolina. “I’ve seen one over 10 feet long.” His construction is distinct because it’s custom, the first such LEGO model he’s built. Cha rles credit s h is St a r Destroyer to a digital revolution transforming LEGO fandom. Throughout LEGO’s 62-year history, die-hards have always built wild, imaginative models from their plastic scrap heaps, but a new wave of fan-made digital resources has given builders the tools to craft custom models that rival the detail and integrity of official LEGO sets. Whether you’re looking for cutting-edge software to design your next project or a site that can generate a piece-by-piece instruction booklet, it’s likely out there, free for download.

Like most new LEGO projects, Charles’s ship materialized on a computer before he started clicking bricks together. Today, fan-written LEGO prog ra ms li ke Br ick smith, LDraw, and Studio 2.0 allow builders to “try out ideas without needing to dig through your tub of LEGOs or go out and find parts at a garage sale,” says Jacob Moore, creative director at BrickLink, a LEGO fan forum, brick market, and publisher of the Studio 2.0 design program. Charles used Studio 2.0 for his Star Destroyer after struggling with LEGO Digital Designer, the LEGO Group’s in-house program. He says he made the switch because the fan software felt similar to the professional programs he used at his animation job. The intuitive system surprised him. “I hadn’t tried a project like this because I thought I’d need all the parts in front of me,” he says. As a collector and hobbyistcrafter of Star Wars props— Charles just finished a life-size replica of Han Solo trapped in carbonite—Charles’s first concern was making sure his LEGO Star Destroyer would be as close to film fidelity as possible. Given that the ship is shaped like an acute triangle, precision with the structure’s angles was paramount. “I decided at the beginning I wanted the whole thing to be 5 feet long,” says Charles. “That triggered a lot of the other choices I had to make about proportions.” Charles acquired a publicly available 3D scan of the A New Hope Imperial Star Destroyer and overlaid it into Studio 2.0 to design the skeleton of his build.

Charlesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ship is accurate to the stud except for one thing: The bridge is four studs wider than movie scale.

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Once he had the hull mapped out, he moved on to the specifics. “Of the 15 months I spent designing and building this thing, most were spent in this software,” he says. “I jumped back and forth a lot between c r a f t i n g t he a e s t he t ic a l l y pleasing parts of the model— the plating and turrets—and refining the superstructure underlying it all. Every time I designed something, I had to find places to hook it together. I just hoped it would stick without breaking apart.” Charles’ biggest design challenge (and concession) wa s the ship’s bridge—the oblong hexagon that towers above the wedge-like body. “I wanted it to be proportionally accurate,” he says. “But I had to give in and make it about four studs too

wide. I had all these beautiful design elements that wouldn’t fit if I made it smaller, and I couldn’t bear to lose them.” After 11 months, Charles’s design was finished, and Studio 2.0 gave him a parts list of almost 20,000 individual bricks, which he uploaded into a fan-written inventory software called BrickStock. BrickStock is connected to a database of every type of individual brick the LEGO Group has ever produced. LEGO has more than 3,400 unique plastic pieces in over 60 colors on record, from the classic 2x4 brick to LEGO tires and dinosaur jaws. Using BrickStock, Charles found he already had about 8,500 of the 20,000 required destroyer pieces from various LEGO sets

Once, Charles knocked over his destroyer by accident: “I caught most of it, then did what I had to. I started the instructions over.”

and lots he’d collected at garage sales and online marketplaces. He purchased some remaining parts from the LEGO Group’s online “Pick A Brick” service, but he sourced most of them from BrickLink, the fan community’s massive secondhand market. Moore claims BrickLink is the largest eBay-style marketplace for secondhand LEGOs, boasting more than 10,000 worldwide sellers. There’s plenty of supply: The LEGO Group reports producing more than 40 billion bricks annually, about 4 million per hour. What’s more, LEGO announced in late 2019 they would be purchasing BrickLink, so whether you need a few specific parts for a Star Destroyer or as many as you can melt down (more on that later), you can find what you need at going market price: about 11 cents for a workhorse 2x16 gray plate. As Charles’s bricks poured in, he started assembling his destroyer using the massive 3,300-page custom instruction

book provided by Studio 2.0. But by page 200, he says, “things started to fall apart.” Design f laws spanned the length of the ship. “The engine end broke apart multiple times,” Charles says. “I had all these sharp angles that worked perfectly in my computer model, but refused to stick together in realit y, and the tip of the model sagged at the bottom. To fix that, I had to design a way for the last underside panel to lock upward into place.” This wouldn’t be as straightforward as a professional LEGO model, which, by coincidence, wa s becoming available at the exact same time.

THE REAL DEAL While Charles was modeling his custom Star Destroyer on Studio 2.0, LEGO commissioned their creative teams to build the exact same ship. The LEGO Group’s official “Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer” hit shelves in October 2019. “I started building it in my free time at work,” says Henrik Andersen, lead designer for the official Imperial Star D est royer mo del. Hen r i k’s supervisors noted his passion project and tasked him to make it official, assigning him a deadline and a price point of about $700. That price cap, hefty as it is, means LEGO’s destroyer is around one-quarter the bricks of Charles’s custom ship. Nevertheless, at 4,784 pieces, the off icial model is among the biggest sets the company has produced. It takes about 30 hours of brick-clicking to finish. Henrik and Charles deployed similar engineering strategies to keep their respective 15- and 44-pound models from collapsing or breaking apart.

They each relied on a support spine and skeletal system constructed from classic LEGO bricks and load-bearing LEGO Technic bricks (the latter can be fitted with interconnecting axles). And they independently worked out the same solution to locking the starship’s underside panels onto the model—using the bottom spine as leverage for pressing in the pieces. It was the destroyer’s unders i d e h a n g e r (t h e on e t h a t swallows Leia’s cruiser in A New Hope) that posed the biggest test for both builders—and they each took a different approach. “The hanger is almost as deep as the ship, which ends up putting a large hole right where you’d want a support spine to be,” says Charles. Henrik made the official hanger shallower than what you see in the films so a spine could run above it, but Charles bisected his ship’s spine around the space for proportional authenticity. “Making that work was an enormous challenge,” Charles says. “As I added elements to the model, the increasing weight started to pull on [that section of the spine], flexing pieces and pulling apart bricks. At one point I came back from a trip to find the middle of the ship bowing and falling apart because of that hanger.” Charles had to redesign the weight-bearing spine of his 44-pound beast twice, adding more supporting ribs and adjusting the anchor points of his underside panels. Charles’s model is sleeker and more tr ue-to-f ilm than Henrik’s, who says he “tried to balance the studs and f lat surfaces to give it the characteristic look of a LEGO model,” but the two creators are largely complimentary of one another’s b u i l d s . continued on page 80

SELL YOUR MODEL WORLDWIDE If you think your custom LEGO model is impressive enough to be mass-produced and shipped around the world, you have two options:

THE OFFICIAL ROUTE: LEGO IDEAS. Launched in 2008, this is where fans pitch new sets for commercial production. If you have an idea for a set (must be 2,000 pieces or less), build it, take photos, and post it on the LEGO Ideas website. If it’s popular and receives “support” from 10,000 fans, the LEGO Group will consider it for production. If the bigwigs approve, you’ll work with the LEGO design team in Denmark on final tweaks. “It’s one thing for a model to be complex and beautiful, but you have to make sure that building it is a fun experience,” says Johnny Castrup, head of LEGO Ideas. After tweaks, your set will hit stores worldwide, and you’ll receive 1 percent of the royalties in perpetuity. It’s tough going, however: In 12 years, only 27 fan sets have been published. THE FAN ROUTE: AFOL. In fall 2018, BrickLink launched a production platform called the AFOL (Adult Fans of LEGO) Designer Program. It worked like a Kickstarter. Fans submitted more than 400 designs through Studio 2.0, and BrickLink worked with professional designers from the LEGO Group to test those designs and nominate 16 finalists for crowdfunding. The AFOL Designer Program paid off in May 2019, when BrickLink shipped 13 of the finalist products to consumers. The sets are gorgeous—there’s an antique fire engine and a steampunk chess set—and if you missed the boat the first time, the contest might return this year.

March/April 2020

autostacker.com 1-888-977-8225

BUILT-IN WHEELS

The Ultimate Portable Car Lift MECHANICAL LOCKS

SIMPLE CONTROLS See it on YouTube

POWER SAWS P. 63

ACCESSORIES P. 68

GAS-ENGINE OUTDOOR TOOLS P. 60

DIGITAL HAND TOOLS P. 65

HAND TOOLS P. 70

POWER TOOLS P. 62

POWER DRILLS AND DRIVERS P. 66

SHOP TOOLS P. 72

Build It Stronger, Fix It Faster, Maintain It Better

202

ELECTRIC OUTDOOR TOOLS P. 56

AWARDS

THESE 48 EXCEPTIONAL TOOLS—THE BEST WE’VE TESTED THAT ARE ON THE MARKET NOW—WILL UNLEASH YOUR CAPABILITY AND HELP YOU TAKE ANY PROJECT TO THE NEXT LEVEL. At Popular Mechanics, we’ve been evaluating such equipment for more than 100 years. We test nearly 1,000 different tools each year—out in the field, in our shop, and on projects throughout our homes. The ones on these pages are models that we’ve found deliver reliable performance, quality craftsmanship, and often a strong value, excelling in our use and earning our admiration. Most are new, but a few have been kicking around for a while because better options have yet to arrive. No matter their age, we’re confident these will help you get any job done.

PH OTO G R A PH Y T R E VO R R A A B

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Electric Outdoor Tools

(For more in-depth reviews of topperforming lawn mowers, turn to page 76.)

1. BEST ELECTRIC LAWN MOWER EGO LM2100SP $430 The EGOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design is outstanding, featuring lots of aluminum and impact-resistant plastic. And the mower cuts an impressive amount of grass on one charge (about 8,400 square feet in our test), plus the controls and adjustment are easy and intuitive, even for firsttime users. Its handle folds forward quickly and easily, then telescopes in for rapid and compact storage in a garage or shed.

2. BEST CORDLESS LEAF BLOWER EGO LBX6000 $1,700 If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re worried that cordless blowers lack power, you have nothing to fear with the LBX6000 and its king-size battery pack. In comparison testMarch/April 2020

ing with other blowers, it cleared leaves faster and farther than all but one of the gas-fueled models. We particularly liked that the handheld part of the blower is lighter than any other model we tried, at only 6.4 pounds. 3. BEST CORDLESS CHAINSAW Stihl MSA 200 C-BQ From $590 Stihl’s small but surprisingly capable motor makes this the champion of cordless chainsaws. The thin-kerf chain (its teeth are 3⁄32-inch wide) zips through each cut with smoothness and precision. Yes, the MSA 200 is expensive, but it’s every bit a high-torque Stihl saw. 58

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4. BEST SMALL CORDLESS CHAINSAW Stihl GTA 26 $150 Don’t let the diminutive stature of this 3.1-pound saw, which has just a 4-inch guide bar and a 10.8-volt motor, fool you. Although it’s designed for minor yard-care jobs, particularly pruning, we were able to dice up a fallen tree limb with it, cutting both small sticks and branches up to 6 inches thick. The whole cut-andclear job took a mere 15 minutes, without almost any noise. 5. BEST CORDED LEAF BLOWER Worx WG521 $70 With cordless tools dominating this space, it’s easy to overlook good products

just because they need to be plugged in. But don’t skip over this one. We connected the powerful, 120-volt WG521 to a 100foot extension cord on a

cold autumn day and blew our front yard clean of leaves, dried berries, pine cones, sticks—the works. Then we air-swept the garage, all in half an hour.

Electric Outdoor Tools

6. BEST ELECTRIC RIDE-ON MOWER Ryobi RY48ZTR100 $4,199 This is a zero-turn mower unlike any other we’ve operated. Its 100-Ah leadacid battery and four motors (one each to power the rear wheels and the two blades) provide a top speed of about 7 mph. That speed, quietness, and lack of choke and throttle to futz with make this thing easy—and, dare we say, fun—to operate. But it’s also a grownup machine that cuts in 42-inch-wide strips, reducing your mowing time. 7. BEST CORDLESS STRING TRIMMER Greenworks GT 161 From $250 The Greenworks is commercial-grade, but if your trimming requirements are on the heavy end of the spectrum, then a model like the GT

161 could be ideal. We admit it can be expensive ($475 with a 2.5-Ah battery and charger). But its explosive power gives it the muscle of a gas-engine machine for mowing down the tall stuff and scything through weeds and saplings. 8. BEST CORDLESS HEDGE TRIMMER Husqvarna 520iHE3 $450 With a 22-inch blade on a pivoting head and a telescoping pole providing a maximum reach of 11 feet, this is the most versatile hedge trimmer we’ve tested. Use it to clean up and shape tall bushes, even their tops, or stretch down embankments with it to get at those hard-to-reach spots.

March/April 2020

Gas-Engine Outdoor Tools

hile so much power-tool innovation lately has focused on cordless, we still maintain that you turn to a gas-engine tool when you need outright tenacity. Take the (9) Ariens Rapidtrak ($3,499). Powered by a 420cc engine and a hydrostatic transmission, the snow thrower clears a 32-inch path and launches its output (in our case, wet sawdust, weighing 21 pounds per cubic foot) a whopping 36 feet. The (10) DR Power SP30 ($1,300) is a self-propelled mower; at its top speed, you’d need to jog behind it. The aluminum deck reduces its weight and the potential for rusting, and its 223cc engine provides all the power you need for clipping and bagging wet grass and leaves. The beauty of the (11) Echo PB-250 ($185)—a simple gas-engine, handheld blower—is the offset tube that recoils in line with your arm, where you can best con60

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trol it, not to your side. By reducing that twist inherent to leaf blowers, Echo made one of the least-fatiguing handheld models we’ve used. And it’s got power to spare. Another simplebut-great Echo product is the (12) CS-361P ($400). Its torquerich 35.8cc engine and 10-pound frame give the chainsaw a high power-to-weight ratio. Combine that with the responsive trigger, and you get a saw that’s productive and fun to use for feathering your way through a branch or using its torque to fell and limb. Finally, Honda’s newest inverter generator, the (13) E2200i ($1,049) has 2,200 watts—compared with the 2,000 of its predecessor—without an accompanying jump in weight. Its shutoff dial provides more thorough fuel removal when you’re emptying the carburetor, eliminating the chances of damaging the E2200i with stale fuel and hard starts.

BEST SNOW THROWER

11 BEST HANDHELD LEAF BLOWER

TESTING OUTDOOR TOOLS

We evaluated everything here in our test zone—for yard tools, that includes lawns, golf courses, wood lots, and gardens. With the mowers, we cut long and short grass, in conditions from the lush dampness of spring to high summer’s long, dry days, rolling up and across hills to gauge the uniformity of the cut, quality of bagging or mulching, and ease of use. Hedge trimmers we took to yews, boxwoods, and, of course, a behemoth hedge— ours was 8-feet tall, 6-feet wide, and 60-feet long. We brought string trimmers to a mess of shin-deep weeds, briars, and saplings. We cut as many “cookies” of dense white oak as we could with each chainsaw from our test batch, taking into account trigger response, vibration, and stalling. And we used the leaf blowers to clear sawdust and leaves from 6x14-foot and 6x12-foot areas, respectively, before we took them to a local airport and fired them up in front of a plane’s pitot tube to measure the wind speed they generated.

10 BEST WIDE-CUT LAWN MOWER

13 BEST GENERATOR

12 BEST GAS CHAINSAW

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Power Tools 14. BEST CORDLESS NAILER Metabo NT1850DE $271 The heavy-duty NT1850DE has a permanently sealed air cylinder for rapid-fire capability; Metabo estimates that it can punch three nails a second. Even professional carpenters

would be hard pressed to make use of that, but what we can say is that it rapidly sank every nail we fired in softwoods and oak. 15. BEST GLUE GUN Arrow GT 300 $50 The Arrow’s 300 watts delivers rapid and sus-

tained glue-melting power. Use it to gob on an adhesive or apply a thin line—both are afforded by a simple-to-adjust trigger mechanism. This was the only gun in our recent test with an on/off pilot light, which is important for safety and saving energy. 16. BEST ANGLE GRINDER Bosch GWX10-45DE $89 Changing an angle grinder’s wheel has gotten a lot faster with the Bosch X-Lock system. Pull up on the tool’s lever and the two spring-loaded jaws retract, freeing the wheel. Push the next wheel into place, and the jaws lock with a satisfying click. It’s true that the tool accepts just X-Lock accessories,

but it’s the first (and only) angle grinder that requires mere seconds to swap parts, which is a big step forward. 17. BEST SANDER Bosch ROS20VSC $49 This Bosch is comfortable and fast. But what we like most about it is how the rubber O-ring seal on the dust port and the airtight canister work together to pick up all the dust generated during sanding. And less dust on the surface

Dremel began making its iconic rotary tool in the 1930s to create an alternative that was lighter, slimmer, quieter, and easier to handle than the only tool like it at the time, the industrial die grinder. It achieved this with a new form of collet mounted atop a slim high-speed, low-torque motor. Within 10 years or so, the company had refined that rotary tool, which hasn’t changed much since. Today’s product looks unmistakably like that older one, and its ability to drill small holes, sand, grind, and cut has withstood the test of time. It was the first power tool I used, in my dad’s basement workshop around 1973. It has an uncanny versatility suited to the many oddball jobs that crop up during small repairs around the house, particularly grinding or cutting metal in a tight spot. And it’s got guts that allow it to punch well above its weight class. Example: I used mine to make a tight-radius cut when removing rotted steel from the windshield recess of my long-gone 1979 Chevy truck. By the time I cut away the affected metal, the Dremel was almost too hot to hold. I let it cool off, and I’m still using it. How’s that for durability? —Roy Berendsohn

A Tool We Will Forever Love: The Mighty Dremel

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Power Saws 19 17

of what you’re sanding means there’s less to grind into the abrasive pad, keeping it clean so you get more use out of it. 18. BEST OSCILLATING MULTITOOL Fein MultiMaster FMM 350QSL $199 Fein pioneered the oscillating multitool category in 1967, and it still builds the best ones. The 3.6-amp MultiMaster does more cutting, sanding, and grinding per amp—and does so more smoothly— than any other we’ve tested. And its many accessories (such as sanding and grinding pads, saw blades, and a putty knife) snap easily on and off.

19. BEST TILE SAW Craftsman CMCS4000M1 $300 Any small tile job can benefit from this 20-volt wet saw, powered by the same battery used in Craftsman’s other cordless tools. Our test on ceramic floor tiles was conclusive: The 30-pound machine is a clean cutter and highly portable, drawing water from an onboard tank without the need for a hose attachment.

20. BEST SMALL CIRCULAR SAW DeWalt DCS571B $129 DeWalt’s 4.5-inch circular saw is a spunky little character powered by a 20-volt battery. Its hefty gears, remarkably large for such a small tool, translate motor torque into some serious wood-cutting output. We used it to crosscut 2x4 framing lumber and 3⁄4inch plywood, and found that it handled both easily and efficiently.

TESTING SAWS 18

Saws are for cutting. So we used them for just that, taking the circular saws to Douglas fir of various thicknesses (running with and against the grain) and hem fir lumber sticky with sap, the metal-cutting saws to studs, pipe, and rebar, and the tile saws to—you guessed it—tile.

March/April 2020

Power Saws

21. BEST CORDLESS BANDSAW Ryobi P590 $179 Put down your hacksaw and pick up the P590, a cordless metal-cutting solution priced for the rest of us. (It’s south of $180 for the saw, two blades, the battery, and the charger. Solo, the saw costs $129.) It cuts through typical hardware-store steel cleanly and in no time.

22. BEST BUDGET CIRCULAR SAW Skil 5280-01 $50 Skil’s long experience with the circular saw comes to the fore with this inexpensive-but-capable tool, the best in our recent test of homeowner-grade machines. It handles nicely, its cutting depth 64

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is easy to adjust, and its 15-amp motor powers it through wood even up to its full blade depth of 2.36 inches. 23. BEST METAL-CUTTING SAW Makita XWL01Z $224 Makita’s 14-inch cordless chop saw is equipped with a gigantic brushless motor powered by two 18-volt batteries. It’s a single tool with only one mission in life, which it carried out better than any other we’ve tried. Let the sparks fall where they may.

Digital Hand Tools 23

24 BEST TORPEDO LEVEL

25 BEST ANGLE READER

26 BEST THERMAL CAMERA

igital devices can be cranky and frail, and it’s right to wonder whether adding digital features to hand tools is illadvised. But we’ll admit, this trio has won us over. Consider the (24) Empire em105.9 ($70). Its backlit screen reads level with a horizontal line, and arrows tell you which end of the level to move and in which direction. It expresses slope

as degrees, tenths of a degree, percentage of slope, or a ratio such as a quarter of an inch of rise per horizontal foot (or run, as it’s known). That’s a lot of capability in a tool that is only 9 inches long and about 2 inches wide. And it has three powerful magnets that help it cling to pipe, conduit, or metal strut. Then there’s this anglereading orange cube, the (25) Klein 935DAG ($30).

It’s small enough to tuck into a tool bag or a pocket, and we found it useful for measuring the slope of our mower test areas. That tiny size (about 2.25-inches long and wide and 1 inch thick) makes it easy to use in tight spots. A zeroing function finds the angle from one surface to another, while a Hold button locks the reading. The (26) Flir C3 ($700) is a power tool in its own diagnostic way. We use

it here during our testing of everything from appliances to workwear. Why? Taking a thermal image can reveal potentially useful info about the mechanical or electrical health of a machine or show you whether a garment leaks heat. If the Flir’s screen indicates a particularly hot or cold spot where it doesn’t belong, take that as a sign that something could be amiss and check it out. March/April 2020

lation is guaranteed to go faster and easier with this little gem. 28. BEST MID-DUTY ROTARY HAMMER Skil Pwrcore RH170401 $118 Our test revealed that Skil’s 20-volt Pwrcore is ideal for heavy-duty use around the house. It takes European-style bits that slip-lock into the chuck automatically, easily drills wood and steel, and strikes with percussive action strong enough to hammer a hole into concrete. In chisel mode, it hits in a direct line without rotation.

Power Drills and Drivers 66

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27. BEST CORDLESS DRILL-DRIVER Milwaukee Installer’s Tool $229 The Installer’s Tool gives you about as much versatility as can be packed into a soft-sided toolbox. It consists of a 12-volt drill body and four nimble heads: a keyless 3⁄8-inch chuck, an offset driver head, a 1⁄4-inch hexhead chuck, and a rightangle head that the other heads snap onto and off of. It’s fast and effective in both drilling and driving around corners, over obstacles, and in tight spots. Any repair or instal-

29. BEST BUDGET DRILL Ryobi D620H $60 Another example of something that’s not new but still good, this corded drill was twice the tool compared to others it faced in our inexpensivedrill shootout. We tested them all with spade bits, twist drills, and drill taps. The motors in the others burned out, and they stalled and jammed while drilling holes in wood or steel. Not the Ryobi. It sailed right through.

use. Pull the trigger and you’ll immediately notice the XDT12Z’s smooth, quiet motor. These are the marks of a tool intended— and, based on our testing, great—for daily professional use. It’s equipped with four speed settings, wood and bolt modes, and two tightening modes that prevent fasteners from breaking or stripping.

30. BEST COMBO KIT Ridgid R9603 $179 The best buy from our tests is this Ridgid. Its drill driver isn’t as powerful as others, but it’s fast and comfortable, making it an almost outlandish deal when you consider

that you get the drill, the impact driver, two batteries, a charger, and a case for the price of one tool. 31. BEST SMALL IMPACT DRIVER Makita XDT12Z $179 This svelte and compact driver is also a pleasure to

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33. BEST BOLT EXTRACTOR GearWrench Bolt Biter $152 The Bolt Biter socket is a substantial improvement over products like it that have come and gone before. Formed out of tough, chrome-molybdenum steel, each socket has a tapered, clover-shaped cavity to help it better grip rounded bolt heads. Plus, they work with any tool: ratchet wrench, air tool, or a cordless wrench. 32

Accessories 68

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32. BEST EVERYDAY BIT SET Bosch DDMS40 $21 Unlike with most other kits, the bits in this one go in and out of their holders easily. Everything in the DDMS40 is rated, and tough enough, for you to use with an impact driver. Among its 40 pieces are many common sizes of Phillips head, square drive, and Torx, and eight twist drills (1⁄16-inch to 1⁄4inch), seven 2-inch bits, and a bit holder.

34. BEST WORKSHOP RADIO DeWalt DWST08820 $229 DeWalt’s DWST08820 has an ingress protection (IP) rating of 54, meaning airborne dust and splashing water can’t get in. That’s useful, but how does this radio sound? Outstanding. Even subtleties of classical music and jazz

it to a member of the boilermaker’s union. After running yards of mig wire on two-inch steel plate, he returned it (no worse for the wear) approvingly.

come through clearly with saws running and hammers whacking away. Suddenly, a jobsite feels a lot more tranquil. 35. BEST POCKET-SCREW GUIDE Kreg 320 $40 The 320 is a beautiful redesign of Kreg’s existing small pocket-screw kit, making the method of joining with these fasteners even easier. It contains two guides that can be used together or separately, the drill bit, a depth gauge, and a clamp head. Kreg even throws in

two small boxes of pocket screws for the price. 36. BEST HOLE SAW KIT Lenox Speed Slot $368 The stair-step slot in the side of these hole saws enables you to get some leverage with a screwdriver to pry out the waste plug that the saw has just cut. It’s also good that each hole saw is toothed with finely ground carbide tips, allowing you to cut through steel, wood, cast iron, stainless steel, fiber cement board, and plaster.

39. BEST STUD FINDER Stanley S50 $12 We like the newest bells and whistles as much as anyone. But sometimes you just don’t need all that, especially when the work is as basic as locating a wall stud or ceiling joist. And Stanley’s S50 makes it easy. Just press the button and glide the device slowly along the wall, keeping an eye on the indicator. When it lights up, you’ve reached an edge.

38. BEST WELDING SQUARE Mag-Mate WS410CP $37 Magnetic welding squares catch molten metal splatter as they hold parts in position at 90 degrees to one another. To test if the Mag Mate’s copper jacket lets this flying junk slide off, we handed

37. BEST HEAVY-DUTY BIT SET Cle-Line Bit Index $50 Proof that high-quality, American-made twist drill bits aren’t extinct, each of the 15 in this set is beautifully machined and coated with a wear-resistant finish. Their split-point, 135-degree tips don’t easily slip off the starting point, especially handy when you’re drilling hard steel. March/April 2020

Hand Tools 40. BEST SOCKET SET Craftsman CMMT99206 $99 Craftsman made its name with products like this mechanics’ tool set. Each of the 216 pieces—1⁄4-, 3⁄8-, and 1⁄2-inch drives (both standard and deep), extensions, combination box-end wrenches, a screwdriver and bit set, and Allen wrenches— is covered with a smooth and lustrous chrome plating over chrome vanadium steel to defend against corrosion and fracture.

41. BEST MULTITOOL Leatherman Free K4 $90 The Free K4 is an outstanding example of a tool that combines the features of a standard folding pocketknife with the more useful ones of a multitool. You can easily open its main 3-inch blade with one thumb, and out of its back fold all manner of other good things: scissors, an awl/punch, a straight screwdriver bit, and a Phillips screwdriver–bottle opener combo tool.

42. BEST POCKETKNIFE Kershaw Skyline $45 The U.S.-made Kershaw Skyline is a slim, attractive everyday carry. And its blade is made from 14C28N, a stainless-steel alloy with loads

March/April 2020

of uniformly distributed carbides—super-hard particles locked in the steel’s microstructure. These help it resist wear, corrosion, and a dulling phenomenon called rolling, where the edge or even the knife point bends back like the tip of a breaking wave.

43. BEST SCREWDRIVER SET Klein 32288 $50 Klein’s screwdriver is here for several reasons. First, the bits are extremely sturdy, suited to the work of professional electricians. Second, they swap easily in and out of the handle: Push them in to lock, and twist the handle collar to pop them out. The whole shebang—five bits and handle—stores in a neat little wallet. 44. BEST TAPE MEASURE Milwaukee 48-22-0225M $25 Milwaukee added features you wouldn’t normally expect in a stout, 25-foot tape measure. And it got them all right. But our favorite is the combination of standard horizontally arranged numbers on the front and vertically arranged num-

bers on its back, making it far easier to read regardless of your view. 45. BEST SNOW SHOVEL Ames True Temper 1603400 $20 This Ames True Temper shovel is a study in sturdiness. Its 1.25inch-diameter steel handle is firmly planted to the 18-inch-wide blade

with a heavily ribbed socket. And what a blade. It’s molded from one piece of slippery, high-density polyethylene that resists clumping snow, meaning you spend more time shoveling and less time trying to bang the True Temper clean. A wear strip riveted on the blade’s tip helps it withstand the occasional rough cleaning, though. 45

March/April 2020

moves an astonishing amount of dust. It’s so powerful, the company warns that you should use only vacuum-rated flex hose and duct; the system’s suction is so great that it will crush lesser materials as flat as a pancake. The benefit to you: Dust and chips from your machines and power tools find their way into the Supercell’s collector, not into your lungs or onto the shop floor.

Shop Tools 72

March/April 2020

46. BEST DUST COLLECTOR Oneida Supercell $2,395 Two things go into removing flying sawdust: air volume and suction. The Supercell has plenty of both. Oneida designed it to bring industrial-duty air movement to the small shop or garage. Its 230volt, five-horsepower motor and fan assembly

47. BEST HEAVY-DUTY TABLE SAW Metabo HPT $599 This is the only table saw we know of that’s both cordless and corded, giving you maximum mobility and more options of where and how to cut lumber. Use it in the garage and plugged into a wall outlet. Or go cordless out in the middle of the yard or on a construction site where cleanup is less of a concern. We like the 68-pound saw’s soft start, which brings it up

to working speed slowly to reduce motor strain and increase safety.

CO U R T E S Y J E S S E S AVAG E ( A N V I L)

48. BEST SMALL TABLE SAW DeWalt DWE7480 $299 We have several years logged with this compact DeWalt table saw in the Popular Mechanics shop. And it has earned

our unqualified endorsement. The DWE7480 is surprisingly accurate, due to a fixed fence that rides on rack-and-pinion rails. Weighing just 48 pounds and running off of a 15-amp, 4,800-rpm motor, it has a power-toweight ratio that simply can’t be beat.

The Most Iconic Anvil Ever Made Most of us would rarely use the word “graceful” to describe an anvil, the hulking block of steel or iron used to pound hot metal into shape. Not so professional and amateur blacksmiths, especially when they refer to a Hay-Budden anvil, the prototypical implement of the late 1800s and early 1900s. A Hay-Budden—from petite foot-size models weighing 10 pounds to 800-pound behemoths—has an unusually beautiful sweep and an incredible strength achieved by the manufacturer’s working knowledge of metallurgy that was quite sophisticated for its day. Today, these anvils are as sought after as they were back then. Sadly, Hay-Budden as a brand came to an end in the 1920s. But it’s a testament to its peerless design that, in this digital era, a host of companies, like JHM and McLellan Blacksmithing, carry on its legacy, shaping beautifully wrought anvils that look every bit the part. These aren’t toys for the dilettante. Visit the website of these manufacturers and you find deep dives on metallurgy, heat treating, and anvil features that help a smith shape a knife, say, or form up graceful ironwork that might become a gate or fence. It speaks to the enduring fascination with forming hot metal that there are probably as many anvil makers now as there were in Hay-Budden’s time.

March/April 2020

Home // BY PA IGE SZMODIS //

The Best Cast-Iron Skillets to Last a Lifetime

H E POWE RHOUSE O F

all kitchen equipment, the cast-iron skillet is the only cookware that improves with use— ea ch t i me you co ok with it, polymerized oil builds up to form a nonstick, water-repelling surface. Compared with aluminum or stainless steel, cast iron has low thermal conductivity but offers superior heat retention, making it ideal for high-temperature cooking such as searing steak and caramelizing vegetables. However, not all cast iron is created equal. The pans from brands like Griswold and Wagner that you might find in your grandmother’s kitchen or at flea markets got their smooth surface through hand-polishing. Most of today’s manufacturers forgo this time-consuming and expensive process, and instead preseason the cast iron to reduce stickiness (although a few are going back to time-tested polishing methods). With the right skillet and skills, you could build upon the factory seasoning to rival the polished pans you’d find at antique shops. Plus, you’ll get more satisfaction (and save money) by doing it yourself. 74

March/April 2020

BEST EVERYDAY SKILLET

1 . LO D G E C L A SS I C Price: $32 Weight: 7.6 lb. Smoothness: 95.5 dBa Stickiness: 4 Searing: 7 Heat Distribution: 4 Pouring: 5 The cast-iron brand that you can find just about anywhere, Lodge has been around for over 120 years. The Classic 12-inch skillet doesn’t exceed others at any particular task, but it’s a popular and affordable choice that’ll yield decent heat conductivity and balance—despite its heft and slower heat rate— for decades. BEST OVERALL PERFORMANCE

2. SMITHEY IRON WA R E N O. 1 2 Price: $200 Weight: 8 lb. Smoothness: 91.1 dBa Stickiness: 10 Searing: 10 Heat Distribution: 10 Pouring: 4 Smithey Ironware is one of the new companies taking inspiration from vintage pans by polishing the interior to create a gorgeous, glassy surface. This is

HOW WE TESTED

the heaviest skillet we tested, but its weight potentially contributed to its excellence in searing and heat distribution. It quickly delivered an even, dark sear with no hotspots and very little sticking. BEST VALUE

3 . V I C TO R I A Price: $25 Weight: 7.4 lb. Smoothness: 80.5 dBa Stickiness: 3 Searing: 9 Heat Distribution: 8 Pouring: 9 You can find this 12-inch Colombiamade skillet for $25 or less, yet it outperformed some skillets that cost more than eight times its price. It may require some extra seasoning to improve its nonstick surface, but overall, it supplied even heat distribution with an ergonomic handle. BEST NONSTICK

4 . STA RGA Z E R Price: $130 Weight: 6.2 lb. Smoothness: 70 dBa Stickiness: 10 Searing: 8 Heat Distribution: 9 Pouring: 10

The young Stargazer brand reigned supreme with its nonstick surface. Compared with more expensive options, Stargazer’s 12-inch skillet is better balanced in terms of weight and heat conductivity and distribution. It doesn’t have pour spouts, but its unique, rolled rim never dripped. With a long handle designed to stay cool and the largest helper handle, it’s as comfortable as it is functional. BEST ENAMELED

5 . LE C R E U S E T S I G N AT U R E I R O N Price: $200 Weight: 6.6 lb. Smoothness: 85.5 dBa Stickiness: 7 Searing: 8 Heat Distribution: 7 Pouring: 6 The high-end French Le Creuset label lived up to its reputation as the maker of the finest enameled castiron cookware. Both the interior and exterior of this 11.75-inch pan are glossy and resistant to stains, and it has balanced handling with a wide loop helper handle.

Cookbook author David Joachim conducted a series of five tests to judge 10 skillets’ heat conductivity, heat distribution, smoothness, stickiness, and ergonomics. He measured smoothness by scraping a metal spatula over their surfaces and recording the decibel levels (dBa). He judged factory seasoning (stickiness) by frying an egg with no oil at medium heat. Heat distribution was tested by observing burn patterns on paper circles. For heat conductivity, he seared boneless strip steaks to monitor the speed, evenness, and depth of browning. Finally, he poured one cup of water from each pan to consider the ergonomics of the handle, pouring spouts, and weight. After ranking each skillet from 1 to 10 (worst to best) in each test and considering its value, we determined that these five are the best skillets you should consider.

T R E VO R R A A B

March/April 2020

Tools // BY ROY BEREN DSOH N //

The Best Mowers for Taming Unruly Lawns

OWE R TESTI NG H E RE IS

nea rly a yea r-round affair. For this review, we began on a cold and windy March day, searching out south-fa cing hillsides devoid of snow; from that skimpy start, we mowed on through the first full growth in early spring, the high and wet grass of early summer, and the dusty conditions a couple of months later when there was hardly anything to cut. We kept right on mowing when the grass bounced back in late summer and into the fall, bagging clippings and leaves. We called it quits on a cold and gray November afternoon that was much like the day we started. Our test areas were a mixed lot—a golf course, an office building lawn, and the turf at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The mowers were equally diverse. We tested standard-width and wide-cut models, some powered by gas engines and others by battery-fed motors. We also tried a big, electric, zero-turn riding mower. At each stage, we evaluated cut cleanness, bagging capability, side discharge, how each fared on unruly non-turf grass, and whether tires easily shed or picked up moist clippings. Out of the 17 we put through the paces, here are the top performers. (See the full report at popularmechanics.com.) 76

March/April 2020

motor’s rotations per minute up Price: $560 Weight: 80 lb.

and down to meet power demand

Volts: 60 Cutting width: 22 in.

and extend run time. Users familiar

Blades: 1 Drive: Rear-wheel

with the brand’s gas-engine Per-

Cut area on one charge:

sonal Pace mowers—the farther

5,400 sq. ft.

you push the drive bar forward, the faster the machine goes—

Toro mowers do well in our tests

will like this rig. And it has a

for the simple reason that they’re

steel deck, hefty rear axle, and

designed and built well. We were

three-function capability: mulch,

relieved to find that the company

side discharge, and bag. Now, does

didn’t skimp with this machine, a

it power through tall grass the

full-size, self-propelled, rear-drive

way the gas-engine Personal Pace

unit that gave us exactly 30 min-

mower does? No. Still, its overall

utes of mulching, hill climbing, and

performance is commendable. We

cutting, scything down the tallest

recommend it for gently sloped

and lushest grass in the test. (And

and maintained suburban yards,

it ran longer than 45 minutes under

just purchase a second battery.

recoil; you never know when

T R E VO R R A A B

make the Stihl slightly taller

a battery or push button will

Price: $700 Weight: 69.9 lb.

than other mowers, but there’s

Price: $549 Weight: 78 lb.

give out and leave you with a

Volts: 36 Cutting width: 20 in.

no harm in that. We also like

Engine: 190cc Cutting

shaggy lawn. The mower uses

Blades: 1 Drive: Rear-wheel

the slot, tucked below the bat-

width: 21 in. Blades: 1

a battery similar to that found

Cut area on one charge:

tery hatch, for a second six-Ah

Drive: Rear-wheel

on power tools—slide it into

4,285 sq. ft.

battery. And, as with the Toro,

the receiver on the engine

we advise investing in that sec-

The best gas-engine mower

housing, push the button, and

Costing $700, the RMA will

ond battery. The mower did

we’ve used lately is this Snap-

away you go. The Snapper

cause any homeowner to won-

reasonably well in mulching

per. It’s got all the bells and

has sufficient power for even

der what they’re getting for

mode, cutting taller-than-aver-

whistles of a fully outfitted

tall and non-turf grasses,

that money. One answer is

age grass with the deck set at

machine, such as single-lever

leaves a clean cut, and bags

robust construction; the Stihl

mid-height, but it left behind

deck-height adjustment,

well, with no visible clippings

has many burly parts, includ-

trails of mulched clippings in

a big, powerful engine,

trailing in its wake. We prefer

ing an all-steel deck and a thick

places where the lawn was

three functions (mulch, side

mowers with a deck slightly

20-inch blade. But it also has

particularly lush. On the other

discharge, and bag), and

wider than the wheelbase to

small and important details.

hand, every battery mower we

push-button starting. On

facilitate trimming, which this

The motor is located almost

tested left some deposits in its

that last point, we like it, but

mower does not have, but

entirely above the deck, pro-

wake when the grass was tall.

if we’d made this mower, we

that’s not a serious demerit.

March/April 2020

Tools

B AC K

FRONT

THE 3 TYPES OF

DRIVETRAINS There are two ways to propel a mower: You push, or the mower itself does. And if you opt for one that moves forward under its own power via a drivetrain, you’ve got to choose between rear-wheel, front-wheel, and all-wheel drive. Here’s how each works. 1

1. REAR-WHEEL ▶ Pull the mower’s handle to apply tension to the drive cable and a spring attached to the transmission. ▶ The transmission pivots; the pulley at its top moves away from the engine.

▶ This tenses the drive belt coming from the engine output shaft, spinning the transmission pulley.

March/April 2020

3. ALL-WHEEL ▶ Once again, pull the mower’s drive handle to tense the drive cable and the spring. ▶ The transmission pivots; the two pulleys move away from the engine.

2. FRONT-WHEEL

▶ That tenses two drive belts, spinning the transmission pulleys.

▶ As you pull back on the drive handle and tension moves through the cable, spring, trans-

▶ This leads to better maneuverability but less traction going uphill.

▶ That rotates gears at the rear axle, turning the wheels.

▶ The process here is much the same as with rear-wheel drive, except the configuration is flipped.

mission, pulleys, and drive belts, the gears at the front axle turn the wheels.

▶ Gears at both the front and rear axles turn all four wheels for better traction, but at greater cost and maintenance as there are more parts to wear out.

BEST FOR BAGGING

EASIEST TO USE

M U R R AY 11 A - B 2 A 975 8

WO R X WG751

Price: $236 Weight: 57.2 lb.

Price: $348 Weight: 50.2 lb. Volts: 40

Engine: 163cc Cutting width: 21 in.

Cutting Width: 19 in. Blades: 1

Engine: 140cc Cutting width: 21 in.

Blades: 1 Drive: Push

Drive: Push Cut area on one charge:

Blades: 1 Drive: Push

Price: $232 Weight: 65 lb.

4,830 sq. ft. If you’re shopping for a mid-duty mower,

The horsepower war rages on as compa-

this machine is a great choice. We were

The Worx is a light, simple, and, based on

nies try to pump more and more oomph

pleasantly surprised with the tight

our testing, well suited to smooth sub-

into their lawn mowers. But this one does

seal between the bag and the deck;

urban yards. Counting the bag and two

just fine with a modest Briggs & Strat-

the resulting airflow under the mower

batteries, it weighs a hair over 50 pounds.

ton engine, thank you very much. And

inflated that bag like a balloon. And sure

We found that lightness makes it easy

that contributes to the machine’s light

enough, it was packed with collected

to push up or across hills, even with a full

weight, which makes it nimble and easy

clippings by the time we were done. For

grass bag. And its deck was simple to

to handle. It’s downright fun to mow

the price, the mower has a long list of

adjust via the single height-changing lever.

with. The TB115 bags and mulches sur-

high-quality parts: a large engine, good

A hatch on the side of the deck permits

prisingly well, handles normal-height

workmanship visible everywhere with

you to easily switch between its mulch,

grass, and—with the side-discharge

no rough edges on metal parts, and

bag, and side-discharge functions. Some

chute in place—performed admirably in

smoothly rolling wheels. All these con-

of the weight savings comes via a plastic

tall grass. Let’s be clear: It doesn’t have

tribute to the Murray’s journeyman

nose and a torsion box (a web-like assem-

the power of a 190cc mower. But if you

performance in bagging, side discharge,

bly of plastic fins). While that raises some

don’t need that, why buy more engine?

and mulching. And the manufacturer

concerns about the durability, nothing

For maintaining small lawns or trimming

threw in a bonus feature normally found

broke during our test. And the WG751 is

landscapes prior to tackling the tougher

on more-expensive mowers: two-lever

hardly devoid of robust features—it has

stuff onboard a rider, this Troy-Bilt is the

deck-height adjustment.

two rigid steel axles at the front and rear.

cost-effective choice.

March/April 2020

BUILDING MY OWN AIRPLANE

LEGO REVOLUTION

continued from page 35

continued from page 53

intimate, but it’s more so when you’ve built the plane yourself. As a pilot, you have to be ahead of the airplane or you’re in trouble. In a kit plane, whether it’s in flight or on the ground, you’ll always know exactly where an issue is because you’re the one who assembled it. There’s a level of pride in whatever you’re flying, too: I built this. I’m still assembling, so I don’t have that full sense of attachment yet, but once I sit in the pilot’s seat, it’ll hit me. I have a newborn at home, so now I’m going through all of this with safety in mind. All the decisions I’m making come down to feeling capable. If I don’t feel capable, I’d rather find people who are more experienced to perform the task. For example: I’m hiring a professional test pilot for my first flight with the TSi. You have to stall the airplane, test the maneuvering, take it up to max speed, and verify everything the manufacturer tells you the plane can handle. These days, I’ve made planes my life. I’m a full-time aviation YouTuber. Most people don’t know how to build their own airplane or what getting a pilot’s license entails, and I hope that by documenting what I am doing on YouTube I can attract more people to kit planes and aviation. My channel was taking off before I decided to build the plane, and my wife asked if I’d still choose a kit plane if YouTube didn’t exist. Absolutely. Ever since I earned my license, my goal was to build a life around flying. It took me 20 years to reach this point. One of the best things about building a YouTube channel has been the community I’ve entered. I’ve had people from all over the world reach out to me and say my channel inspired them to start doing some type of aviation. It encourages me to keep doing this more and more. I want to feel like I’m representing more than Nigerians or immigrants, like I am speaking for anyone who has ever wanted to fly. I don’t want to get on my channel and say, “Hey, look at me, I’m a Nigerian immigrant reviewing airplanes.” I’m doing it for everyone who has ever looked to the sky, seen a plane, and thought: That’ll be me someday. —As told to Jordan Golson

Charles’s only critique for his professiona l counter par t lies in the minutiae. He points out that the official model’s radar domes are cocked at an improper angle. “They made the same mistake on the Star Destroyer they published in 2002,” he says. “A lot of fans were hoping they would correct that.” You ca n buy Henr ik’s off icia l set online or in a LEGO store, but Charles’s home creation is for sale, too, in a way. You can purchase his gargantuan instruction booklet, plus a parts list, for $50 on the fan site Rebrickable, which houses such information for more than 15,000 custom sets. “Not all LEGO fans are designers. Personally, I’m a ‘follow the instructions’ guy,” says Rebrickable founder Nathan Thom. “I began Rebrickable because I had thousands of pieces I collected from sets and wondered if there was something else, already designed, I could build with them.” On Rebrickable, builders upload their personal inventories of LEGO parts, and the website produces a list of other models (plus instructions) you can put together with those pieces. Rebrickable also provides alternate builds you can make with parts from a single set. For example, the 174-piece Mighty Dinosaurs set offers alternate builds for 52 other designs, including an elephant, a helicopter, a scorpion, and a crab.

March/April 2020

PRINT THEM YOURSELF What if the LEGO piece you want doesn’t exist? There’s a world of custom 3D-printed LEGO pieces. Joe Trupia runs Citizen Brick, a printing company that designs and publishes pieces the family-friendly LEG O Group won’t release. Citizen Brick has sold LEGO barbed wire, beer, dozens of different guns, figurines with cleavage, and a few iterations of the “botany enthusiast,” a figurine toting a bong. Trupia makes his bootleg bricks by melting down preexisting LEGO pieces and pouring the liquid into 40 injection molders. These molders are similar to what the LEGO Group runs

in their factory in Denmark, but Trupia admits Citizen Brick’s setup is low-tech. Each molder holds a quarter pound of LEGO bricks and must be refilled manually via a foot-pedalo p e r a t e d h o p p e r. T h e m o l d e r accepts small LEGOs whole, but it uses a grinder to break down larger bricks. LEG O ha s used the same polymer—acrylonitrile butadiene styrene—since 1963, and Trupia’s machines melt it down between 375°F and 400°F, depending on the volume of plastic, its color, and the size of the mold. Some bricks face temperatures as high as 525°F. Trupia admits he walks a fine line between homage and bootleg. “We were really proactive when we started up, asking [the LEGO Group] what they wanted us to stay away from, especially franchise-wise.” The LEGO legal team provides Citizen Brick with disclaimers for their products, but Trupia still treads carefully. Citizen Brick won’t produce Star Wars toys, for example. Still, Trupia doubts custom-printed LEGOs will take over the market. “It’s probably inevitable [people will use our custom pieces],” he says. “But 3D-printed pieces are not going to get any where close to the production quality of the real deal anytime soon.” Indeed, if you play around with 3D-printed pieces, you’ll find they’re often irregular, brittle, and hard to click together. From what Trupia’s seen, customers have no patience for that. “They’re incredibly loyal to LEGO,” he says. “Frankly, Citizen Brick wouldn’t exist if we didn’t pay the proper respects to the LEG O design aesthetic.” S o fa n c r e a t or s l i k e C h a rle s Anderson will stick with original and secondhand bricks rather than the remolded knockoffs. The classic LEGOs haven’t changed in 62 years, but modern builders are more ambitious, resourceful, and inventive than ever. Today, your first custom build can be a titanic, personal, one-of-a-kind masterpiece—and perhaps something as impressive as a 44-pound, 20,000brick Imperial Star Destroyer.

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and nails. A healthy gut is the key to a reducing swelling DQG LQĂ&#x20AC;DPPDWLRQ WKDW FDQ ZUHDN KDYRF RQ WKH KXPDQ ERG\ 'RFWRUV VD\ WKLV LV ZK\ $ORH&XUH works on so many aspects of your health. AloeCureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s active ingredient is made from the famous healing compound found in Aloe Vera. It is both safe and healthy. There are also no known VLGH H HFWV Scientists believe that it helps improve digesWLYH E\ DFWLQJ DV D QDWXUDO DFLG EX HU WKDW LPSURYHV WKH S+ EDODQFH RI \RXU VWRPDFK DQG KHOSV the immune system maintain healthy functions. Research has shown that this acid imbalance FRQWULEXWHV WR SDLQIXO LQĂ&#x20AC;DPPDWLRQ WKURXJKRXW your entire body and is why AloeCure seems to EH VR H HFWLYH

EXCITING RESULTS FROM PATIENTS To date millions of bottles of AloeCure have been sold, and the community seeking non-pharma therapy for their GI health continues to grow. $FFRUGLQJ WR 'U /HDO KHU SDWLHQWV DUH DEsolutely thrilled with their results and are often shocked by how fast it works. Âł)RU WKH ÂżUVW WLPH LQ \HDUV WKH\ DUH IUHH IURP concerns about their digestion and almost every RWKHU DVSHFW RI WKHLU KHDOWK Â´ VD\V 'U /HDO ÂłDQG , recommend it to everyone who wants to improve GI health before considering drugs, surgery, or OTC medications.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;All the problems with my stomach are gone. Completely gone. I can say AloeCure is a miracle. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a miracle.â&#x20AC;? Another user turned spokesSHUVRQ VDLG Âł, VWDUWHG WR QRWLFH D GL HUHQFH EHcause I was sleeping through the night and that was great. AloeCure does work for me. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s made D KXJH GL HUHQFH Â´ With so much positive feedback, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to see why the community of believers is growing and sales for the new pill are soaring.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND ALOECURE AloeCure is a pill thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s taken just once daily. The pill is small. Easy to swallow. There are QR KDUPIXO VLGH H HFWV DQG LW GRHV QRW UHTXLUH D prescription. The active ingredient is a rare Aloe Vera component known as acemannan. Millions spent in developing a proprietary SURFHVV IRU H[WUDFWLQJ DFHPDQQDQ UHVXOWHG LQ WKH KLJKHVW TXDOLW\ PRVW ELR DYDLODEOH OHYHOV RI DFHPDQQDQ NQRZQ WR H[LVW DQG LWÂśV PDGH IURP organic aloe. $FFRUGLQJ WR 'U /HDO DQG OHDGLQJ H[SHUWV LPSURYLQJ WKH S+ EDODQFH RI \RXU VWRPDFK DQG

restoring gut health is the key to revitalizing your entire body. When your digestive system isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t healthy, it causes unwanted stress on your immune system, ZKLFK UHVXOWV LQ LQĂ&#x20AC;DPPDWLRQ LQ WKH UHVW RI WKH body. The recommended daily allowance of acemannan in AloeCure has been proven to support GLJHVWLYH KHDOWK DQG PDQDJH SDLQIXO LQĂ&#x20AC;DPPDtion through immune system adjustments withRXW VLGH H HFWV RU GUXJV 7KLV ZRXOG H[SODLQ ZK\ VR PDQ\ XVHUV DUH H[SHULHQFLQJ LPSUHVVLYH UHVXOWV VR TXLFNO\

REVITALIZE YOUR ENTIRE BODY With daily use, AloeCure helps users look and feel decades younger and defend against some of WKH SDLQIXO LQĂ&#x20AC;DPPDWLRQ WKDW DFFRPSDQLHV DJLQJ and can make life hard. %\ EX HULQJ VWRPDFK DFLG DQG UHVWRULQJ JXW health, AloeCureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ingredient maintains healthy immune system function to combat painful inĂ&#x20AC;DPPDWLRQ UHGXFH WKH DSSHDUDQFH RI ZLQNOHV and help strengthen hair and nails ... maintains KHDOWK\ FKROHVWHURO DQG R[LGDWLYH VWUHVV LPproves sleep and energyâ&#x20AC;Ś. and supports brain function by way of gut biome... without side efIHFWV RU H[SHQVH Readers can now reclaim their energy, vitality, and youth regardless of age.

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HOW TO GET ALOECURE 7KLV LV WKH R FLDO QDWLRQZLGH UHOHDVH RI WKH new AloeCure pill in the United States. And VR WKH FRPSDQ\ LV R HULQJ RXU UHDGHUV XS WR FREE bottles with their order. This special give-away is only available for D OLPLWHG WLPH $OO \RX KDYH WR GR LV FDOO 72// FREE 1-800-748-3280 and provide the operator with the Free Bottle Approval Code: AC100. The company will do the rest. ,PSRUWDQW 'XH WR $ORH&XUHÂśV UHFHQW PHGLD H[SRVXUH SKRQH OLQHV DUH RIWHQ EXV\ ,I \RX FDOO and do not immediately get through, please be patient and call back. Those who miss the 48hour deadline may lose out on this free bottle R HU

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HANDCRAFTED KNIFE

HOME BREWING

continued from page 41

continued from page 45

pliers (and gloves or an oven mitt for added safety), place the blade on its side in the coals (so the edge is facing up), with the forced air on and the embers burning. ▶ Normalize the blade Normalizing your blade’s steel helps relieve stress in the grain structure during the cutting and grinding processes. Heating the blade and allowing it to cool reorganizes the steel’s microstructure, making it more consistent and strong throughout. Leave the blade in the forge until it’s glowing orange but not quite bright orange (with your forge at 1,500°F, this should take about 15 minutes). You can use a magnet at the end of a pole to see if your blade is hot enough. When the steel reaches a temperature called the “Curie point,” it will no longer be magnetized. The heat disrupts the alignment of the atomic magnetic moments within the steel, causing them to stop reinforcing each other and eliminating the magnetic attraction. “It is important to be sure the steel reaches an even color with no dark shadows present within the orange glow,” Brach says. “Shadows will create soft spots in the steel.” Once your blade is hot enough, use the tongs to remove it and let it cool on its own until it reaches room temperature (about an hour). Repeat this heating and cooling process, but the second time, remove the knife when it’s heated to a slightly dimmer shade of orange, after around 10 minutes. ▶ Harden the blade Heat the blade to an even orange color one more time, but this time, immediately quench it in the metal pail of warm vegetable oil (between 100°F and 120°F). Quenching the blade in oil rapidly reduces the temperature of the steel, trapping carbon in solution and making the steel harder. Make sure to completely submerge the blade while keeping a grip with your tongs; otherwise a fire could spark on the surface. (If a fire starts, don’t panic: It will be small and contained—you can usually 82

March/April 2020

just blow it out like a candle.) Make a subtle cutting motion with the blade through the oil for 30 seconds. If you want to check its hardness, let it cool completely on a rack. “If your blade has properly hardened, once it is cool you should be able to run a worn file along the edge and the file will skate on the surface of the steel rather than cutting,” Brach says. “If the file bites into the steel, reheat it in the fire to the even orange temperature, let it soak at that temperature for 10 minutes, then quench it again.” ▶ Temper the blade in your oven Tempering the blade softens the metal slightly so it won’t be too brittle. Take the knife from the oil bath or off the rack, and place it on the center rack of a 375°F oven. Bake for an hour, then remove the knife to let it cool completely. Repeat the baking process once. ▶ Sharpen the blade You can now grind your blade edge down to that centerline using your angle grinder and the flapper wheel. Pay close attention as you sharpen the knife. Once burrs begin to appear on the edge of the blade, it’s as sharp as you’re going to get it with your angle grinder. At that point, switch to a knife sharpener to finish off the edge. ▶ Wrap the handle Wrap the handle in paracord or in strips of recycled leather to add grip and comfort. A few feet of either material will suffice, but if you have some to spare, braiding the material before you wrap it around the handle will give your knife a more impressive look. “If you use a cord-wrapped handle, it’s important to secure it to the tang, preferably with slow-set epoxy, to ensure the grip does not slip forward onto the cutting edge during heavy use,” Brach says. Apply the epoxy to the handle of the knife and lay the first few inches of the cord along the handle. Then wrap the remaining cord tightly around the handle and over that first piece of cord until both are completely covered. Tie off the end with a secure knot.

Calagione says. Add an ounce or two 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.” ▶ Try a barrel-aged shortcut You likely can’t age your beer in 10,000-gallon 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 flavor by dropping several oak chips in a mason jar with four to five ounces of a strong, neutral spirit such as Everclear 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 sugar to boost a beer’s flavorful complexity. Calagione recommends keeping adjuncts to less than 20 percent 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 flavor and not sweetness. Sometimes ex tra sweetness is essential, especially when brewing light, low-calorie beers with amyloglucosidase enzymes (try White Labs’ Ultra-Ferm). They break complex sugars into simple sugars that yeast convert 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 sterilizing whirlpool, and “recognize that a little goes a long way,” Calagione says.

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“How can I secure my cubicle from prying intruders—in a covert way?” —PRO MEMBER MARTIN STEVEN*

P R O T E C T YO U R PA S S WORD // Houghton says this is the easiest way to protect your information. Keep desk tchotchkes (especially sticky notes) to a minimum. “Make sure your security questions aren’t plastered all over,” he says. “Social engineering is the term we use for trying to learn as much as we can about somebody in order to guess their password and get inside their system without hacking it.” 1.

L E AV E A “ T E L LTA L E ” // There’s a scene in D r. No where James Bond plucks a strand of hair from his head and sticks it across the opening between the closet doors in his hotel room. When he ret ur ns, the ha ir is gone, indicating to him alone that someone opened the doors. Houghton says you can leave telltales of your own on your office desk. Have important documents you’d like to keep safe? Place a stapler on top and position it in a way that you’ll easily be able to spot if it has been tampered with. 2.

DUMMY FILES // If you suspect a co-worker is steal-

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March/April 2020

ing your ideas, leave a folder with a bunch of junk ideas on your desktop and then bury the good files in a place that’s much more difficult to find— like, say, in a folder labeled “Cancun 2012.” This method is what industry experts call “chicken feed,” and it’s a great way to throw snoopers off your scent, Houghton says. “You’re offering up tidbits of what looks like good information to your adversary.” 4 . I N V E S T I N L O W -T E C H GADGETS // Houghton recommends a screen protector that shields your screen from snooping eyes. A pen camera is also useful here. If you’re going to a meeting and you suspect that someone is going to sit down at your desk and rifle through your stuff, “you can turn that pen camera on and then catch them in the act,” he says. 5. AND

FINALLY… HERE’S HOW TO SLACK OFF // Memorize your boss’s schedule, identify which parts of the day he or she will be in a meeting—not roaming around the office. That way, you can scroll through Pop Mech in peace.

—PRO MEMBER STEVE MARTIN*

Ever notice that your ears pop easier on a plane’s ascent than the descent? That’s because, according to Martin, the Aerospace Physiology Operations Manager at the University of North Dakota, the pocket of air behind your eardrum expands on the way up due to the lower barometric air pressure, naturally forcing equalization. On the way down, you have the exact opposite problem. “When we descend into the

denser air at lower altitudes, it’s harder for air to get past the one-way flap back up the eustachian tube,” he says. Which means Martin—who teaches pilots how to equalize the pressure using an altitude chamber on his campus—recommends pulling the “Valsalva maneuver.” Pinch your nose, keep your lips sealed, and blow like you are blowing your nose. If only one ear pops, tilt the problem ear so it faces the sky and look straight ahead with your shoulders level. “This will stretch and straighten the eustachian tube. Perform a short, sharp Valsalva maneuver,” he says.

KEEP LEFTOVER SAWDUST —PRO MEMBER JOHN TIMMERMANS

“Any fine sawdust I get I save in a glass jar. Whenever I have a hole or crack that needs filled, I mix some of the sawdust with wood glue.” It’s a cheap solution for quick (if a bit imprecise) repairs.

—Interview by Jennifer Leman

JOIN POP MECH PRO AND GET FEATURED HERE! Plus gain access to our most in-depth, exclusive, and fascinating stories. Learn more at popularmechanics.com/popmechpro *DOUBLE FIRST NAMES NOT REQUIRED FOR MEMBERSHIP.

G E T T Y I M AG E S

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March/April 2020

P O P M E C H E D I TO R S

design cars, but that changed when I got to design school. That’s where I discovered a world of materials, processes, and tools I never knew existed. Cars were limited when it came to this, and after a trip to Europe, I found a new passion on two wheels. This inspiration wa s driven further when I returned to an assignment to study bicycle design for a class. It was then that I discovered bamboo frames from the 19th century. My mind made a design almost immediately. It’s just putting tubes together, right? How hard could it be? The answer came over six months. After that, I was hooked. It’s been my life since 2007, especially after the earthquake that hit Mexico City in September 2017. I had just made my first cargo bike, and a friend and I used it to move rocks and rubble away from fallen buildings. After that, friends used it to deliver water, food, and tools. Something I’d made helped people. That’s why I feel a great passion for designing these bikes. We are constantly getting new design challenges, geometries, and adaptations from clients. It’s a puzzle I enjoy solving. Plus, every bike is a step toward a better world.

Welcome to the best Subaru Outback ever. ®

Go where love takes you.

You have a big, beautiful world to explore. Standard Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive + up to 33 MPG.* Standard EyeSight Driver Assist Technology.† Standard X-MODE. ®

The all-new 2020 Subaru Outback gives you the comfort, flexible interior space, and advanced technology to do it right. This is our most adventurous Outback ever.

Outback. Well-equipped at $26,645.** Subaru, Outback, EyeSight, and X-MODE are registered trademarks. *EPA-estimated highway fuel economy for 2020 Subaru Outback non-turbo models. Actual mileage may vary. †EyeSight is a driver-assist system that may not operate optimally under all driving conditions. The driver is always responsible for safe and attentive driving. System effectiveness depends on many factors, such as vehicle maintenance, weather, and road conditions. See your owner’s manual for complete details on system operation and limitations. **MSRP excludes destination and delivery charges, tax, title, and registration fees. Retailer sets actual price. Certain equipment may be required in specific states, which can modify your MSRP. See your retailer for details. 2020 Subaru Outback Touring shown has an MSRP of $37,345. Vehicle shown with accessory equipment.