Paper… “firewood”

DIY fuel briquettes from paper: press plan and technology

Nowadays the amount of paper waste has increased sharply, mainly due to “disposable” printed matter: besides newspapers and magazines, mailboxes are filled with countless promotional leaflets, various election campaign materials and the like—all free of charge. It would be a shame not to put such gifts to use. The “Master” club figured this out long Read more…

Detachable concrete mixer

DIY concrete mixer with reverse drive: design

The concrete mixer is designed to produce concrete mix or cement-sand mortar. Its volumetric output is 15 ten‑liter buckets of mix in the ratio: 1.5 buckets of cement + 4.5 buckets of sand + 9 buckets of crushed stone (water not included) per batch, with a cycle time of 15 minutes (5 minutes each for Read more…

With forced air

Schematic diagram of the under-hood fan power supply

With the help of articles in the magazine «Modelist-Konstruktor», I built myself a universal power tiller based on a Minsk motorcycle. It turned out to be a good, hard-working mechanical helper. Its basis, of course, is the standard motorcycle frame, shortened (as recommended by the magazine) and fitted with the power unit and a two-stage Read more…

Autogyro control

Autogyro Control System: Complete Design and Manufacturing Guide

During 1970, our magazine published a series of articles by a group of autogyro designers about the features of building these rotary-wing aircraft, about how to build autogyro models, how to fly gyrogliders towed by a boat or car. At the request of numerous readers, we tell in this issue about the autogyro control system Read more…

Vitamin jack

Homemade Fruit Juice Press with Car Jack: DIY Guide

In our middle latitudes, there are years when fruit trees stand as if in construction scaffolding: they are not visible due to a palisade of supports saving branches overloaded with fruit. Gardeners know how difficult it is to grow a good harvest, but no less a problem is to preserve it, to make maximum use Read more…

Ultrasound against rodents

Ultrasound: Nature, Tech & DIY "Antigryzun" Rodent Repeller

Among elastic oscillations of air, ultrasound (from Latin ultra — beyond, more, above), inaudible to the human ear and with a lower frequency limit conventionally taken as 20 kHz, has long attracted special interest. Insects, bats, and even cetaceans make successful use of this natural gift: some for communication, others for hunting, others for locating Read more…

Plowing… with a shovel

Shovel-Plow DIY: Soil Tillage Tool That Eases Back Strain

I made this soil-working tool to lighten the hard work, since digging the ground with an ordinary shovel—constantly bending and straightening—had become harder and harder over the years. The device itself is a modest invention (an author’s certificate was obtained for it), but it is useful: now my back does not hurt even after long Read more…

School hydrometeorological station

School Automatic Weather Station: Diagrams

“The school automatic weather station, constructed by students of secondary school No. 5 in the city of Klin, is of technical interest. The precipitation sensor and its registration on the control panel are originally conceived and implemented. The wind direction and speed indicators, as well as the thermometer, are interesting. Such weather stations can also Read more…

Will heat and produce biogas

Biogas plant for producing methane from manure

Biogas. Used as far back as ancient China and then “rediscovered” millennia later as a “non-conventional, environmentally clean energy source of the 21st century,” it is attracting growing attention in our country too. Evidence of this is, in particular, the steady rise in publications related to biogas—including in the pages of Modelist-Konstruktor (see, for example, Read more…