As soon as the bright spring sun drives the snow off the icy shell that has locked rivers, reservoirs, and lakes in place, colorful sails appear on natural ice courses. These are ice boats. Any reader can become an ice boater — anyone with metalworking and carpentry skills can build an ice yacht. The ice Read more…
In different regions of our country, the soil is cultivated in different ways. Soil and climate conditions naturally leave their mark on the designs of small-scale mechanization tools developed by owners of household plots. Some build micro-tractors and motor blocks designed for use with a plow; others build motor tillers. Our reader from Sverdlovsk Oblast, Read more…
The favorite car in the countryside is, without doubt, the full-wheel-drive, high-clearance VAZ 2121 “Niva”. Unfortunately, our industry does not produce trailers specifically for this model that have a high load capacity and can be operated off-road. And that’s a pity! Rural residents have an enormous need for them: they have to haul building materials Read more…
Over the past decade, motor all-terrain vehicles on light wheels with pneumatic inner tubes have become especially popular among amateur designers. The remarkable cross-country ability of such machines prompted sailing sports enthusiasts to use the unique properties of the pneumatic wheel when creating all-season sail craft. This publication introduces readers to such a vehicle. So, Read more…
Of the family of micro-tractors developed by students at the Kharkiv Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture, the simplest and most accessible for DIY construction is the walk-behind tractor “Malysh” (KHIMESKh-2): it makes maximum use of units and parts from industrially produced machinery. This is a compact two-wheeled machine controlled by an operator walking Read more…
In “M-K” No. 4 for 1982, an article was published about the young technicians club at housing management office No. 8 in the city of Vitebsk, and about the amusing and useful machines created by its members. Among the most original devices mentioned was the mechanical sweeper MPM-1. It was conceived as a means of Read more…
Building homemade cars is a unique phenomenon. Apart from the USSR, nowhere else did this movement become widespread. People of the most varied professions took up amateur car design: doctors, artists, musicians, workers and engineers. It is known that the space conqueror A.A. Serebrov had a homemade car, and cosmonaut V.A. Aksyonov took part as Read more…
I rode the Kharkiv Bicycle Factory’s “Tourist” bicycle for 30 years. It was, perhaps, one of the best Soviet bicycles — not only for active recreation (which it was actually designed for), but also for everyday trips. Now it hangs on the shed wall as a retro exhibit. Instead, I bought a new, modern two-wheel Read more…
Thousands of motorboats and launches built by amateurs to designs from the MK design bureau ply the waters of rivers, lakes, and even seas across our vast homeland. These include the widely popular Moskichka, Volzhanka, Strelka, Rusalka, Taifun, and Ruslan. An experienced specialist will recognize them at once by their characteristic profile and attitude on Read more…
I have been a long-time reader of the magazine “Modelist-Konstruktor” and subscribed to it for many years in a row. Then, due to financial difficulties, I had to give it up. But since last year I have started subscribing again. I am glad that, as before, I find a lot of useful material in the Read more…
