Steam-powered submarines are regarded today as something of a design curiosity, although the motives for their creation were entirely rational. The French set the fashion here. Despite the concept’s rapid failure, these boats took a very active part in the First World War. And one of the most successful steam submarines of the Third Republic’s Read more…
Many famous French automobiles were created by aviators. The cars of the Voisin brothers and Farman are well known, for example. A worthy place in automotive history is also held by the light off-roader Citroen Mehari. It was designed by a pilot as well — Hero of the Soviet Union, Count Roland de la Poype. Read more…
I needed such a complex trolley to carry an inflatable boat. The one sold in stores takes up quite a lot of space, and keeping it in a rubber boat is not very convenient: the wheels stick out, as do the cargo platform and its stop. On my trolley everything folds, which made it quite Read more…
Not only the house itself, but also the fence around it can say a lot about the owner: for one it is a light enclosure, for another a hedge, and for a third a solid fence. But whatever the fencing may be, it needs to be kept in good order — then it looks completely Read more…
Owners of a motorcycle with a sidecar often wonder how to increase its payload. An original solution was proposed by our magazine’s reader A. Tatarnikov in his article “The Obedient Trailer,” published in Modelist-Konstruktor No. 12, 1992. The design of his motorcycle trailer with an offset hitch and a track matching that of the towing Read more…
I have long been a fan of the magazine “Modelist-Konstruktor”. Back in my school years I was into aircraft and rocket modeling and made kites. Small-scale mechanization also attracted me. I dreamed of some kind of tractor, especially when I had to dig the garden by the house by hand. After graduating from the institute, Read more…
The prototype of this slot-car model (for how to build a simple home or school track for model-car racing, see “M-K” No. 3, 2025.) was the Cummins Diesel Special racing car, a participant in the 500-mile race of 1952 on the track in Indianapolis (Indiana, USA). In the early days of the automobile industry, racing Read more…
According to the “table of ranks,” the Gran Turismo class covers comfortable, high-speed cars in a sporting style, intended for long-distance travel on motorways. Soviet industry never produced anything of the kind, and there were almost no high-speed roads at the time. Even so, such cars were built by amateur designers to individual projects (and Read more…
Travel enthusiasts have many devices for cooking hot food in camping conditions (primus stoves, blowtorches, portable stoves, etc.). Their operation requires a supply of liquid fuel or firewood. The former is unsafe to store, and firewood is hard to find in the mountains or in treeless steppe. For climbers and tourists, hunters and anglers, I Read more…
Did you ever, as a child, send toy cars down a slope, competing with friends over whose would roll faster? Now this pastime is taken seriously by perfectly grown-up people. The event is called “Valve Cover Racing.” A valve cover is a part of an internal combustion engine that closes the valvetrain to protect its Read more…
